How I've Really Learned Programming?Here are the things you should keep in mind while learning to program:1. You'll fail more often than not, don't take it too seriously. Everybody fails when they try something new. It's not something that one should have to tell you, but I'll say it anyway.2. Practice is more important than reading books and taking courses. There are several great courses for starters on coursera.org about programming for beginners that, I believe, you should begin with. What is more important than study material is practice material and assignments.Truse me, you will never become a good programmer by reading more. You need to start writing code.3. Solving problems is more than just hitting keys on your keyboard. Often we see in movies how programmers are given a problem and they immediately start typing things down. In real world, it doesn't work this way.It's almost always a good idea to try to solve a problem first on paper and then start writing code.4. Getting the basics of programming and aptitude to make logic is more important than choice of language.Although I'm one of those people who are a bit choosy about a programming language, but that's a trait you should defer acquiring.Now to answer another question that you asked -- weather you should learn to code first or understand algorithms and data structures.I suggest that you get in the habit of writing basic code in any language, then start studying algorithms and data structures. Once you know a bit of programming you can study algorithms and keep improving on your programming skills.A program is a set of instructions written in a language (such as BASIC) understandable by the computer to perform a particular function on the computer. A well written program could be parceled well to form an application package customized for solving specific type of problem on the computer system. A computer programmer is computer scientist (a professional) skilled in using constructs of programming languages to develop executable and acceptable computer programs. A software developer is a programmer. Programmers often work hand in hand with system analysts on large projects. Programming languages are artificial notational languages created or developed to be used in preparing coded instructions on the computer for later execution by the computer. They are usually composed of series of usage rules (syntax) that determine the meaning (semantics) of expressions written in the language. Each programming language comes handy with its own translator i.e interpreter or compiler as the case may be. Programming Programming is the art of developing computer programs with the aid of selected programming language by a computer programmer. It is a special skill whose quality is tested by the quality of the resulting program or software. In programming, programming stages must be properly followed, i.e from problem definition to maintenance and review I am constantly asked the following: "Which programming language should I learn if I'm new?" "Which programming language is most in-demand for jobs?" "What's the most popular programming language?"........