[noverloop]

I'd advise java as a first language, this language really forces you to grasp the concept of object-oriented programming. python and ruby make it to easy to ignore objects, while objects are a concept that once grasped is going to make programming in any language a lot easier.

The thing about programming is that it's a creative process where you apply ideas in order to create a solution, the more clearly you understand these ideas the better you will be at programming(which is just writing down a solution so that a compiler can understand it).