Starting Point on the programming journey

I am really completely new to programming.

I mean I've built websites and used PHP a little, but wouldn't describe myself as knowing PHP. I've written stuff in C but it was basically following step by step instructions. I've also followed the Xcode basic tutorials and built the hello world app and converter app. But frankly, I didn't understand what I was doing most of the time at all. It was a miracle I managed to get the end result I did.

But I want to learn how to work in Xcode with familiarity. That uses the Cocoa API right? However I guess Objective C isn't the best language to dive into as a starting point. I hear Python's a recommended starting point nowadays. And Objective C is a derivative of C, so I'd maybe need a bit more knowledge of C too?

So where on earth do I start? Any book recommendation to start my programming learning curve. A not massively steep learning curve would be lovely but I recognise effort is needed and am willing to put that in.

 

Thanks for all the advice. Looks like I'll start straight off with Objective C then. I'll check out the recommended books.