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How To Get Into Programming?
writermike asks: "Like many on Slashdot, I practically grew up with computers. I've had one or more since 1978. However, unlike a lot of people here, I simply never learned how to program. Twenty-seven years later, I still know nothing about 'programming.' I'm a fairly successful technology troubleshooter, having been in that role for 15 years, and I find as I delve deeper into why programs fail, my interest in programming rises, and I feel that not knowing the principles is a hole in my knowledge that hampers me a bit. There are so many books and courses out there that seem to focus less on principles and more on specific languages and/or the 'career-track'. I don't really want to code the next great web service. I want to learn principles, then begin to learn a language. Where can I begin the adventure I should have started back in 1978?"
Perl is a great suggestion. It is one of the easiest languages to get into if you have never programmed before, and for someone in your shoes it is particularly good beccause of how easy it is to write simple but helpful scripts to run on various machines you work on.
"The binary opposite of the color 'black' is 'not black'."
That would be the boolean opposite of black, not the binary opposite/two's complement of black. Whatever you define black to be.