I am a n00b

But seriously, I would like to know how to build applications without the help of interface builder e.g. Microsoft's Visual series. I am competent, although I am used to being helped by very friendly IDE's.

Where to start? Which one(s) allow me to build the whole thing?
Python?
C?
C++?
Java?

C, then whatever
C is not object oriented which is not good, but it is the mother of most languages, including java, C++, php, and... well, more!
And it will teach you more about your computer than any other language.
if you don't mind about knowing how memory really works and want to jump right into object oriented programming, then java
if you find it very hard to write semicolons after every isntruction and enclosing methods in curly braces, python.
C is fast, java is not so fast, and python is slow.
C, Python and Java are easy, C++ is not
Python doesn't need t be compiled
Java is compile once run anywhere
C and C++ need to be compiled in every PC you're gonna use it, kind of.