I talked to my son who is a progammer and he advised against starting with
PHP which is something he knows a lot about since he programmes in it for
the university. He says it a great language for experienced programmers, but
it can teach bad habits to new programmers because of the way it does
things. I can't explain more because it was over my head. He suggested
Python, but not Perl or C, C++. Python and PHP are very marketable skills to
have. He said learning a low level language is good, but after you have
programmed for awhile. I am not a programmer but know lots of them, so am
used to hearing their rants.