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by sga 5641 days ago
The best thing to do is to start along the path (as there's no magic bullet):

1. Pick a language (python, ruby, php; if you know someone that programs well with one of these choose that language)

2. Learn to program with that language (if you chose python, here's a good free book to get you going: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index)

3. Don't gloss over steps in whatever book you've chosen. Actually get the scripts running on your computer.

4. If you're getting an error or something doesn't make sense, search http://stackoverflow.com/

5. Once you feel comfortable writing scripts, buy yourself a cheap shared hosting service (I've used Dreamhost but there are others. If you know someone who programs choose what they are using.)

6. Download putty and/or use a web based ftp client. Interact with your server, get comfortable writing scripts in whatever language you chose.

7. Choose a framework (look here for candidates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_f...).

8. Get the framework installed on your server and do the tutorial and get whatever toy app they specify up and running.

-> somewhere in there it would also be useful/necessary to dabble with HTML, CSS, SQL (w3schools is a reasonable enough place to start)

Now you're good to go ... build, build, build.