Quote:
If you really want to get into how computers 'think', as Doug was reffering to, I'd go with LISP or Scheme (a LISP derivative).
In those languages though,
(you (would (have (to (deal (with (lots (of (parentheses)))))))))
I'm not sure what Zach L. was getting at here -- in my Programming Languages class we learned that imperitive languages (C, C++, Java, FORTRAN, and most other common languages) most closely model the computer's architecture (hardware). That is, those languages do represent how a computer "thinks," more or less. (Of course assembly language most closely resembles what's going on with the hardware -- but I would not recommend that for a first language!) Lisp and Scheme are based on mathematical functions and do not model the underlying computer hardware, which is why they're usually slower. (But some programs are much easier to write in Lisp or Scheme than other languages, which is why people use them.)