🚀 go-pugleaf

Depends on what kind of programming you want to get into.  You need to
find out more about the different industries first.  If you want to do
Database programming for business applications (what I'm in), and you
want to use the latest technology, you should learn Access, RDBMS
theory, and VB4.  These are fairly easy to learn and cheap to purchase,
and many companies use them.  An inexperienced VB4 programmer/analyst
can start at around 20K-25K.  Read the books, buy the software, and play
at home for a few months.  If you want the big bucks, purchase
Powerbuilder 5.0 with Sybase SQL 5.5.  It's a harder language to grasp,
but no experience starts at 30K.  If you already know VB4, it transfers
fairly easily to PB.  However, you'll knock yourself out of Microsoft
shops that don't use PB, but VB4 instead.  Powerbuilder can do whatever
Visual Basic can do, only better and faster.  

Do yourself a favor and take a year of courses at the University of
South Florida.  Take Database Admin and Advanced Database with Willard
Baired.  Take Intro and Intermediate C (to prep you for Powerbuilder)
with Laurence Roberts (St. Pete Campus) and or take Emerging
Technologies:  Visual Basic 4 (you can learn this faster with a book
from Que).    Good luck and let me know when you get there.  I'll hook
you up with a job.