Being a web programmer, I actually started by using the WYSIWYG editor in the old Netscape Navigator (v2.0 I think). I simply created a simple HTML page, then v

Being a web programmer, I actually started by using the WYSIWYG editor in the old Netscape Navigator (v2.0 I think). I simply created a simple HTML page, then viewed the source code to see what it was doing. This was my freshmen year in High School. During my junior year our math teacher decided to start a Visual Basic programming class, which I quickly jumped into that class. Then progressed to reading lotsa books, online tutorials, etc. 100% of the knowledge I use today was all self taught, but those first bits of <HTML> is all it took to get me hooked. I also did some basic BASIC programing on my TI-82, so I could put all the random math formulas into it so I just needed to enter X and Y and it would tell me what Z was. Being that we were allowed to use the calculators on the tests :) Being biased towards the web side of things, I think HTML5/CSS3/Javascript is a great (instant gratification) way to start learning programming.