Teaching myself

Okay, I want to teach myself programming.

I tried SICP first.  I hit section 1.2 and realized my skills are just not up to par for a book aimed at MIT students.

I'm thinking now of hitting a thorough-but-practical book.  From some quick searching "C Primer Plus" seems to generally be what I want.

On the side I plan on beefing up my math skills in preparation for eventually moving from programming to deeper comp sci type stuff.

What does /prog/ think?

I don't mean to sound cynical, but SICP is a beginners manual. The fact that it's used in MIT is irrelevant. IF you cannot understand SICP then dare I say, programming is not cut out for you.

However, if you're still adamant about learning, then I would recommend first learning x86 assembly, or picking up a book about how a computer actually works, and only then moving onto C/C++. Whatever you do, for the love of God please do not learn Java as your first language. It will cripple you beyond recovery as a programmer. I don't want to bore you with my usual spiel about Java, but please heed my warning. Do not learn Java first, please...