_Hacking For Dummies_<p>OK. I'm pretty new around here.<p>I've been scouting HN for a few months as a passive user, and I've seen a lot of interesting stuff. You guys seem like you've got a pretty solid community going on. A good number of the questions that get posted are answered in real depth, and most of the links are of a good quality - and are of interest to a newbie like myself.<p>I've decided that I'd like to join up and get more involved in the world of hacking. Plus, I plan to post some interesting stuff. :)<p>(I've also signed up at reddit, but I don't necessarily expect to get good answers to questions. Once you cut all the crap out of your front page and post to specific subreddits, it gets better, but there's still a lot of pointless commenting and posting going on.)<p>I'm currently a science undergrad. I've got HTML and CSS nailed - I started off with the easy stuff - and now I'm getting pretty good at hacking about with JS thats <i>almost</i> what I want, but not quite. Hence the messing around.<p>So far I've had some advice from a certain friendly duck, who told me about the importance of knowing how to write good algorithms.<p>Have you guys got any other advice for a newbie programmer? For example, what programming language would you recommend I started with? And do you have any ideas about how to get a foot in the door of the hacking world (like good experience and making contacts)?<p>Even the most general and obvious stuff is much appreciated - as, more likely than not, it won't be obvious to me!<p>Thanks very much! :)<p>- Wihon
* Get involved with open source.<p>* Ruby and Python are good languages that you can do a lot with.<p>* Eventually, knowing some C would be a good idea.<p>* Run Linux as your desktop.