Programming Language

6 down vote

Should you start? Oh, absolutely. You'll never know if you have an aptitude for this or get any enjoyment out of it until you give it a try. Now, just how far down the rabbit hole you go depends on just how much aptitude or enjoyment you discover -- but as others have mentioned, and you yourself suggested, you don't need to get to a point where you're cranking out professional-grade code for this to be worth your while.

One thing I would recommend against, however, is starting by tweaking other peoples' code; I'd call that more of an intermediate/advanced approach than a beginner's. Unless you're dealing with something that is meticulously documented and has remarkably clear logic, you're liable to get bloody intimidated in a hurry. Mature real-world code is often a mad, sprawling beastie, filled with inelegant (but necessary) hacks and design decisions that owed more to haste and convenience than sound engineering principles. Start with your own stuff. When a piece of code is presented to you as "THIS is how it's done!", pay attention; but otherwise, find your footing before you head into other peoples' work.

(Caveat: Copy-n-pasting snippets of other peoples' code off of Google to solve a common problem? Totally cool. As long as you understand how the snippet in question works.)

Is Python a good starting point? Sure, why not? Not familiar with it myself, but it's mature, has a sizable fanbase user community, and apparently has a number of features to recommend it. Seems as good a place to begin as any.

So jump on in. And if you find it too frustrating and/or tedious, the piano lessons and volunteer work will still be waiting for you.