Tips on books for learning basic programming skills

[viMitch]

I am new to the programming world and would like to get involved with programming, but I have a problem, I don't know what book to read!
I am also so fussy with books (I hate books that move at a slow pace).
I would rather buy a book to teach me the basics using pseudo code and get another book after to learn the syntax of a language.

Do you have any recommendations for me to learn programming skills?

Thanks a lot! :)

[phrostbyte]

Are you looking for a book on algorithm development? If so, the book "Intro to Algorithms" by MIT Press uses pseudocode. But it is an advanced book which is not for beginners.

It's best to learn how to program by actually programming. Programming is both easy and fun, and you don't really need a book to start.

For reading material I recommend you start with something like this:
http://docs.python.org/tutorial/

In order to mess around with Python quickly (prototyping), all you got to do is type "python" into a Terminal. Ubuntu already includes Python, so there is nothing to install. It is best to do this while reading the tutorial.

In addition is a very simple Python program I have written for people new to programming to learn from:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1237842

You should try to modify it to work different.