I was wondering if anyone could give me advice.I am 18 and I have a small knowledge of programming,but not much.I would like to get into Programming eventually as a career.Where should I start out?What kind of schooling would be best too?

I can recommend a school not to go to.. Devry University.. they s&ck b@lls, and not in a good way, only in a figurative way... Stay far far away..

Anyhow, I dont really know. Most of my shcooling has been a drunken, drug induced haze that has left me tens of thousands of dollars in debt and with gawd knows how many sicknesses (some of them previously undocumented).

Seriously though.. you are already on the right track if you are a linux user, this will allow you to easily obtain experience with a wide variety of languages.. you need to do that.. learns as much about as many as possible.. IMO, C++ is a good place to start, then move on to Java and get a little acquainted with it. The get some scripting langs pick up some Perl, php, bash etc.. Once you get going they will start to fall quicker and quicker.. Another thing I have found is that different styles of different languages can open up you eyes to possibilties in other languages.. Also once you get a little experience, pick and opensource project and contribute. even if you code never gets accepted, it is great practice to be coding with a goal in sight..

Then once you are out of school, well have you ever seen Office Space.

im teaching myself from books and its going well just hard to find time and quite to study and im going to our comunity colage for java cert. classes in jan. i have heard goo things nad for 60 dollars isnt that bad for 1 course and a total of 3 i think it beginning java than intermetate java than ofcaourse advanced java. they are like 7 weeks each one or 2 days a week. ill let you know what i think after jan 1. i would say first pick a lanugage you might like to learn (i picked C) and i got a few books including C for dummies and its going pretty well. i kinda breaking from it to learn python right now. good luck!!!!!!

Yeah,I bought a bunch of books too.CompTIA A+ ,Network +,HTML,Javascript,C++.I spent like $250 on books.I am wondering though if I should be going to college to learn this stuff.I am sure not many places want to hire me if I just learned from books.I really would just like to get a good paying job,no matter what kind of stuff it is.I dont know which area to focus on

A+ is hardware certs. C++ is ok i havent done much with it tho. i use HTML for my sites but i always refer to the books i find it easier that way. java i havent even played with yet. if you are a linux user and new to linux you might want to check some things out about bash scripting. the commands you run in linux and the bash commands are very simialr if no tthe same

Pick a language, find a free tutorial on the net, get started. Go for it!

My road to the Sun Java Cert (which I missed by 10 questions) went like this:
basic (ewww)
html (yay!)
javascript (ever so basically)
Java (2 years)
2 failed AP exams
1 failed cert in the middle of that...

I still like java- just not the college board for the lack of info on the site...

Some real-world location might help, don't you think?

In case it applies, I'm very happy of school I went to. It's called IMAG (from the "Joseph Fourier University"), and it is in Grenoble, France.

Yves.