How Can I Practice Programming on My PC?

Visual Basic - Microsoft product: Gotta get VB6 installed legit or whichever way you figure out,
Java - Free stuff. Need to get J2SE SDK and prolly an IDE. Download from Sun. Then get tutorials to get started,

Good luck

Before you try your hands on the new programming languages, it'll be nice if you can take some crash course on Qbasic. With this you'll be able to catch up with the any other languages. Every intro leads to DOS

@smano
You chose 2 of the most widely used languages in the world. I think you should start with them before any other language anybody may suggest to you.
VB 2005 is the latest version of VB, better get that than VB6. It has a free though a bit tempered down version is good for most(?) intent. You can download from here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/support/install/

Download the latest version jdk6 (for java)  from here
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

You can get enough help from people of this forum. Now you are the only one stopping yourself

You are a comp. sci student? you have to first get a programming language to use.You can start humbly with something like Qbasic. Or if you don't want that you can go with Visual Basic.
     There are so many options to pick from.

C++, C, JAVA, and a ost of others.

Mr Smano,
Take my advice, first decide what u want to use your programming skills for. Is it for making $$$ or for fun?? if the second is the case well learn VB.
But if u want to make $$ from programming, first decide the kind of applications you would like to be creating it will help you choose a good language that can do it well. My advice to you, learn c/c++ learn PHP and maybe ASP. You use the last two to develop web applications (like nairaland is a web application).

If you go learning VB, you are wasting your time. you may learn it cause your school want u to learn it, but to make a leaving, do PHP and or ASP. Peace.

well are u a yr 1 student,  to start programming u need to remember this,  COMPUTERs are the most stupid machines ever made by man, though they seem the smartest,  but they lack common sense a 3 yr old has,  afte this as sunk in ,  pick up a QBasic book and read it religiously till u get to file management then u can start combining other languages,  in the process of learning try to talk to other programmers,  read magazines and chat in good forums/chat rooms,  make friends who share your passion,  then before u knu it you're up and running before u start learning the big stuffs like VB,C/C++,java etc,  its not an easy journey but endure it it cld b lonely atimes but friend stay put,  memorize this ,  "to b the master , walk with the master,learn from the master, think like the master then become the master,

Web application is the next big thing. I would advice you to get access to a server (WAMP server is good), and do server side scripting. AJAX(Asynchronous Javascript and XML) is the upcoming language, in great demand. It is catching up in the UK, and it wont take much time to take off in Nigeria. To understand AJAX you need to know a thing or three about JavaScript(not JAVA) and XML

Why AJAX?
read  about it at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)

Why wampserver?
Because it is free, and it consist of APACHE server (the most widely used server on the internet), MySQL(database) and PHP(one of the most widely used server scripting language)

where can I download the server from?
http://www.wampserver.com/en/

Knowledge needed to start learning this scripting language?
HTML (XHTML recommended)
XML
JavaScript

other programmes needed?
Web browser (IE7, Mozilla Firefox reommended)
Notepad (or other text editor)

other useful links
http://w3schools.com/ajax/default.asp
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

Site that has used AJAX?
http://www.netvibes.com/  (play around with this site to gain better understanding)
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en  (try and search for a word)

I hope it helps, best of luck and send me your first AJAX site.

OLu(UK)