You haven't said what your experience is, but starting with PHP or a scripting language might be good for you. You can do a lot in PHP, and it's cross-platform. The O'Reilly book 'Programming PHP' contains a lot of really good beginner's information, even explaining the object-orientated model.
There's also AppleScript, which can be a real time-saver if you get into it. It's not really programming, rather scripting, but a lot of the concepts are the same. That said, I'd still advise the Programming PHP book as an introduction, because it's really hard to find a 'real programming' book which will explain the basics well.
Using PHP or AppleScript you'll get results much quicker, that's for sure.