Your best bet is to get a project and make something. It doesn't matter what the project is or if anyone besides you will ever use it.
There will obviously be a lot of debate (and possibly some downmodding) over this, but I would say that the language doesn't matter. I think the important part will be finding resources that you think will be helpful for you (a book, a tutorial you find on google, a friend who knows programming). In your case you want to spend as much time coding and as little time on set up and administration as possible.
Figure out how to do something easy, then see if you can start tweaking it and adding small things. You'll be a regular hacker in no time
There will obviously be a lot of debate (and possibly some downmodding) over this, but I would say that the language doesn't matter. I think the important part will be finding resources that you think will be helpful for you (a book, a tutorial you find on google, a friend who knows programming). In your case you want to spend as much time coding and as little time on set up and administration as possible.
Figure out how to do something easy, then see if you can start tweaking it and adding small things. You'll be a regular hacker in no time