hi all; something i've wanted to do for an age is learn some proper programming language to make some of my ideas come to life (ultimately i want to make a window manager)

so where and what should i learn?

also are there any good, well-commented programs i can fiddle with to learn?


thanks!

welcome! sounds like you want to learn C++
best thing to do would be to get a good book on C++ and/or take a class
to quickly get into coding start with a scripting language like
python or ruby, lots of documentation available online
source code is available for just about any program on a standard linux distro
including the window manager

taking a class/course really isnt an option as my free time comes as and when it likes

anyone got a good site to learn from? i found a couple but they dont seem to be too inspiring :/

As cpuobsessed said, if you want to write a window manager, it would be a good idea to learn C/C++, although you can write one in any Turing complete language (even Haskell). To answer the question posed in the title of this thread, the best way to learn to code is simply to write code. Get yourself a good online resource, PDF, or book about whatever language you want to learn and follow along in it until you feel comfortable enough to mess around on your own. Then, mess around on your own. The more time you spend programming the better you will get. As for good, well commented window managers, I've got a bit of a bias toward dwm http://dwm.suckless.org/ because it's in C, only a wee bit over 2000 lines, and is a perfect example of what a small yet well documented projects should look like.

Good luck and happy hacking.