They are actually a better starting point for starters, because they focus you on solving business problems and help you not get lost in the syntax.

IT Managers and the Business World is more concerned with the amount of business problems you can solve with you code (your productivity) than in comparing the elegance of a programming language’s syntax to another.

Now, if you are not interested in programming for the business world and you want to work in a niche for exxample, writing system level fuctions, assemblers, compilers, graphics or data mining programs that require precise algorithms and computations, you may consider languages like C/C++

My suggestion for people learning to write code would be:

1) Learn a language, not a technology.

Pick up language specific book on C++, C#, Java, what have you, but learn the *language*. Once you understand how programming languages work, you’ll be able to learn any other programming language with ease.

2) Start small, but practice what you learn

Think of an application to write, a small one, and preferably, something practical to you. Use this application to learn as you go, and refactor it as you learn more and better ways. This will reinforce the concepts you’ve learned through your reading.

3) Learn a higher level language

In my opinion, while C++ and C are a good place to start if you’re getting a degree in CS, but you get lost in the mechanics and syntax of languages like that.

Visual Basic, Java, C#, all of these languages are very close to english, and if you tackle them, you are far more likely to quickly understand how and why languages do what they do.

4) Hit the books

Buy the books, they’re big, but if you get the ones from apress, you’ll do just fine.

My primer list for aspiring programmers is as follows (in this order):

C.O.D.E by Charles Petzold
Pro C# 2008 and the .Net 3.5 Platform
(I like this one because language is irrelevant when you’re going to learn programming concepts)
Database Design for Mere Mortals
Fast Track UML 2.0

Additional Reading Can also include:

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
Code Complete, 2nd Edition
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
Notes on the Synthesis of Form

5) Don’t take candy from strangers

You should always ask for help if you aren’t sure, but ask for help from other programmers. There are plenty of people out there who will lead you to ruin with their biases and assumed knowledge, who have never seen code, much less written any.

***a final note

Please please PLEASE learn a modern language for starters. There are a lot of people out there with the completely baffling idea that someone writing an application in assembly is inherently better than any other language, and that cobol and turbopascal are the realm of the ‘31337′. Start at the top and work down, if you don’t, you’ll never be a useful coder, and if you do, you’ll be another 5 years behind where you should be. Pick an object oriented language, and preferably a managed one, that way you won’t get bogged down in memory management before you actually make any progress.

Remember that these technologies are not easy ways around problems, they are the results of 30+ years of code evolution, and as such, are every bit as (if not more) viable than lower level languages, and they’re a good starting point from which you can tackle lower level programming from in the future should you choose to do so, and come with the added benefit of learning procedural and object oriented programming (as well as the strengths and weaknesses of both constructs) at the same time.

That end part on the vid, really hurt my ears lol but it was a good video =]