My introduction to programming in the 90's was a phonebook-sized tome called "Learn Visual C++ in 12 easy lessons" or something like that. It came with a CD wi

My introduction to programming in the 90's was a phonebook-sized tome called "Learn Visual C++ in 12 easy lessons" or something like that. It came with a CD with Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0. For some reason, it didn't work; I couldn't compile hello world. So I learned C++ just by reading the book, learning all about complicated object oriented features without ever having written any code. About six months later or so I got access to a Borland C++ compiler, and at that point I could actually do stuff. It's possible to learn to program that way if you don't have any better alternative, but it's not a path I'd recommend if you do.