Gnomie Johannes writes in with his top six tips for learning how to program:

1. Start simple, very simple. Don’t download the source to some high-tech program which you use every day — chances are you won’t even be able to compile it (make it into an .exe file). Instead, download some old compiler; I say old because then there will be a lot of support and documentation for it. Then start really simply: write a line of code that displays your name, like in a Windows console program.

2. Learn how to learn. Different people want to learn in different ways. You might want to look at tutorials and walkthroughs on simple programs to learn how someone else did it. Or you might be like me and find a function and play around with it to see what happens.
3. Learn more by finding a method that you think is fun to learn by. For example, you can use the Beep() function to make the computer beep for a certain time and frequency. Beep itself is boring, so why not put it in a loop and give it a higher tone each time, or make it oscillate back and forth?
4. Find a friend or community for when you get stuck. We all need someone we can ask sometimes — even Microsoft — therefore, it’s always nice to have someone or a community you can ask when you get stuck.
5. Release your software. If you make something you think is useful, other people will want it, too. Releasing your software will give you great feedback, and you will gain a strong motivation to expand the program or program more and better programs.
6. Don’t be discouraged in thinking that your skills will be obsolete in a few years, for they will not. Even though new languages are created, they all follow the same idea upon how they work with pointers, functions, and variables, etc. Your skills will be valuable forever.