[christopherslee]

Agreed with the above comment about having a passion for it.

Build stuff, a lot of stuff. Most of it will be bad, but it will start to get better, AND you will start to develop speed in the form of mental patterns for getting things done. Some of those patterns will eventually change as your mentality shifts from "just getting things done" to "getting things done well" to other concerns. Software is largely a set of tradeoffs.

I think getting things done is understated because it also means learning to deal with ambiguity in features/ideas/specifications/product. This can cause paralysis for some.

[joshvm]

My mantra is normally finding a personal problem, locating the libraries/software/hardware that's needed to fix it and then go about solving the problem using those things. Usually doesn't matter if you have no experience, one of the things you get good at is learning to pick up new technology.

Once you get good at programming it's fairly easy to drop into other languages if you need to.

Having an end goal is exceptionally powerful. Spec out your idea fully and then try to make it real.