Programming book suggestions?

[treemonkey]

I want to write a program where the user inputs simple data and gets a graph back. I have basically no experience at programming but it seems relatively simple. Suggestions on a book that would help?

 

[cpals]

Maybe pick a language first?

You can do this in excel...

 

[treemonkey]

It needs to be a stand alone thing.

 

[jonmullen]

depending on the type of graph if its a bar graph the easiest way to do this would be to write a web application that just streches a single pixel gif . If you want to do a pie graph or a line graph that gets a bit tricker. but like cpals said you first need to pick a language...if you are going to use a web interface I would suggest php...the gd library is pretty nice and I have done stuff like this before in it.

 

[dighn]

what kinda graph are we talking about here?

 

[treemonkey]

line graphs of various descriptions. y=Ax etc.