I'm actually having a very similar battle right now. I've introducing myself into the programming field start a few months ago and have been studying C++ as my first language at my own pace, which is rather slow. It's hard to use only books and not have a PERSON to help you out. I'm just started looking a java a week ago. So the question here is, which is best to learn for your very first langauge, Java or C++? C++ is extremely powerful and universal since the ANSI version is standardized, but Java is also widely used and anyone with the runtime enviroment on their computer can run java apps.