Anyone know how to write simple comuter programs?

You will have to be more specific. There are many languages out there to program in. Are you trying to write simple applications, or web pages?

applications, I know how to make web pages

Well that also depends on what type of applications you plan on making. You can write pretty much anything you would need in Visual Basic, and the visual editor it uses makes the need for actual programming knowledge less, although you still should know the basics to use that.

C++ and Java are pretty much the same, with some subtle differences. The greatest being that Java was meant for the web, and C++ wasn't. You can compile a C++ program into an exe so it can be run anytime you want. A Java applet however must be interpreted every time you want to run it, so your computer must have a Java interpreter. These are good for a lot of simple programs, especially text based ones, they are easy to write.

If you wanted something that was more visually appealing then you would write programs in Flash or Director. Flash is mostly used for animation, but you can do some simple programming with that I believe, but I may be wrong. Someone check that for me.

Director is used to write Shockwave files. Most games you find in the arcade are either flash or shockwave files.

So let us know what you wanted to do. Did you have something specific in mind? Or were you looking more for a simple 'Hello World' type program?

I'm not really sure, I've been wanting to just get the knowledge of it first, then decide what I would do, I think I'll go with C++, I tried to get VisualBasic, but I would have had to buy it.

I'm not sure where you can get a C++ compiler, but when you do I think we can help you out. You can also find a lot of information through Google. I know it has saved me several times on programming projects in college. So never forget to check there as well.

ok thanks, google helps so much in everything. okay well I gotta go, later!

Heh, then I suppose you already found this: http://bloodshed.net/dev/devcpp.html

Couldn't hurt to post it, though, just in case. That's a nice free C++ compiler for you. If you want to do something in more of a BASIC flavor, though, there are plenty of available free compilers/interpreters.