Language is not important as compared to the concept.
Depend on your objective , I would suggest a different language. If you want to be able just get something done, and makes games , programming is kind of not necessary. Since you come into this forum, I guess that is the case.
But if you want to be good at programming instead of just making game, I would suggest doing the non game stuffs. Like you said , write a calculator app. Ignore the ui first. Learn how to structure your application into smaller pieces. Learn all the basic stuffs before you start making games.
Another thing you can do is think of something you need in your daily life and do a app for that. That way you can see the result or your learning
How to get motivated to learn Programming?
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Yes a calculator app would be fantastic to start with, two programs that I could use in my daily life that I've been unable to find satisfactorily on the internet is a Good Motherboard,Ram,Hard Drive,Video Card, and CPU temp monitor. Yes, speedfan exists but I don't think it's all that accurate and it doesn't do Ram or Motherboard Temperature Monitoring. I have lots of great ideas and I won't start with game development although obviously, that is my end goal.
I would reccomend you to go read a book called "The war of art" by Steven Pressfield
What you are experiencing now is called Resistance. I'm reading it right now, and it is helping me to defeat the Resistance, and concentrate on what I need to do right now, on my goals and on my projects.
If you find regular programming books (400 page tombs) difficult to get through then try one of the alternatives like "The poignant guide to Ruby" or try an free online programming course like codeacademy or learn street. There is a really good HTML5 games coding class on udacity.
So, since you are at gamedev site, your motivation should be video games. I dreamed about game developing since my early childhood during i played nes/sega (i was about 5-8 yeas old). It was great, yep. But how stupid i was. It was just dreams, no real activity(i had some experience at BASIC though). I've lost MUCH time, and set off only year ago. That's my great mistake.
I'm not really a programmer, I'm a scripter, game developer, and future artist. Perhaps programming just isn't your thing and you should persue another aspect of game development? Anyway, I do have Skype if you want to talk anyway.
I'm motivated simply by wanting to find the mysteries to how a game works. You have to really love technology and what you do to fall in love with programming. It is extremely difficult if you have no influence.
Man, I've had to learn quite a few languages in my day, and I feel your pain on the "slogging through a code book" and trying to figure out how to stay motivated. Recently I had to learn Ruby on Rails for my job, so naturally I bought a book. Funny thing is, the book said "you should have some knowledge of Ruby in order to use this book, so try out TryRuby.org to get a feel for Ruby". I did that course, and I so enjoyed the "active" learning environment that I took RailsForZombies.org. Needless to say, I haven't picked up the book since.
With that said, I would really encourage you to browse around codeschool.com, code.org, codeacademy.com, and codeavengers.com (to name a few of many) and see what languages / courses grab your interest and dive right in. I prefer codeschool.com even though a lot of their best courses are behind the paid subscription, I've felt it's been well worth the price, and I'm a guy with 10 years working in the industry. It's given me an edge to learn the new "trendy" stuff while expanding my skills and ultimately giving me the tools that I need to become a more well-rounded developer overall.
Otherwise when you get stuck on something, post to these forums, post to stackoverflow.com , and if need be, find guys on forums like this that are active and send them a direct message and ask for their help, but don't do that until you've made some sort of effort to do the work yourself.
If you find regular programming books (400 page tombs) difficult to get through then try one of the alternatives like "The poignant guide to Ruby" or try an free online programming course like codeacademy or learn street. There is a really good HTML5 games coding class on udacity.
Thanks Buster2000, I've been struggling to find something that teaches me to code in an engaging way and, so far, Codeacademy is frickin' awesome!
I recently reread the poignant guide and its a nice way of teaching without making people new to programming conciously aware that they are learning, but I have to admit I scrolled over most of those funny long background-storys in search of deeper knowledge. Thats why I like the pickaxe book more.
Ruby is so concise and elegant its almost fun to program and clearly more motivating for me than digging through most other languages with their many quirks. Only downside is its not compilable.
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