New to Programming

[Walter Prescott]

Greetings,

I realize that my questions might come across as somewhat silly considering
that this is a forum for programmers not “newbies,” so to speak. I apologize
ahead of time if I offend anyone but I’ll gladly appreciate any assistance I
receive.

With little to no programming experience I’d like to get into programming. I’m
somewhat experienced with running server and client side variations of the
windows operating system and mainly client operations on linux distributions.
The only programming languages I know are Markup Languages such as HTML/XML
and its subset AIML (for fun, and yet AI has its limitations in a Markup
language whereas implementation in a solid programming language might be better).

I’d like to learn a flexible, fast and powerful programming language that’ll
have near limitless possibility. My main interest with programming lies in
computer security and writing programs simply to effectively manage and run
background processes I see fit (as time expands so too would I like to expand
my programming knowledge).

Would Digital Mars be a good first step?

The truth is I’ve tried to learn C and C++ in the past and found working with
them difficult, still I’m open for anything. I found Python easier due to the
fact that it was interpreter based and yet it was extremely restrictive as far
as what I could do, if that makes sense. I heard D mixes elements of C/C++ and
Python which sounds cool to me (all-in-one is really what I’m looking for).

That being said I should also note that I’m terribly bad at Math! C/C++ books
have a terrible tendency to remove real world examples out of programming
books, instead they give mathematical examples which throw me off completely.

Is extensive Math knowledge required for programming languages? Is it required
to learn the bare minimum of D? Or is D only for really advanced C/C++
programmers?

Currently in my possession are the Schaum’s Outlines books Data Structures
with C++ and Programming with C++.

I would greatly appreciate anyone willing to give me pointers when it comes to
programming languages, what to expect with D, what I’ll be able to do with D,
and the type of knowledge required to initially get into the language. Please
feel free to email me or contact me via the forums.

Thanks!