I started when I was about 12, with a book about C++. When it came to “classes”, it started to get way to difficult for me to understand so I dropped it for a few years.

Then I worked on a game in Rpg-Maker with their event-system a few years later, and when I ran into problems with both performance and features, I was kind of forced to learn scripting (which was ruby/rgss). From that, I re-learned c++ “properly”, having a few projects that didn't go anywhere (I was lacking so much experience in code-design, that after a few months of working on them they became virtually unmangable).

Still, when I came to university for a game-dev class, I was already way ahead in knowledge than my peers, and could focus on learning proper design. Thats when I started with my game-engine, and with a lot more focus on good code-design and a lot of refactoring, I've been on it for about 10 years now.

So when it comes to programming, I think you need both perseverance, dedication, the willingness to learn/fail and learn from your mistakes, and never fall into the trap of thinking you know everything (because you most likely don't).

I read books. Packt has some good books.

I am also very new to programming. Before starting, I had 0 experience.

First thing i recommend is research games that are similar and look at the engines and coding language used to make them. This will give you some insight about which programming language might be best for the game you want to make.

2nd step is googling. I personally found that youtube videos work best for me. I am currently going through a 4hr python tutorial on youtube that has a lot of great details.