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RomanDavis comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong
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It's certainly at least worth trying, since among things to learn it may be both unusually instructive and unusually useful. Here's the big list of LW recommendations.
Khan Academy has a programming course? I might try it.
Mostly, I want the easiest, most handholdy experience possible. Baby talk if necessary. Every experience informs me that programming is hard.
This is the easiest, most handholdy experience possible: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
A coworker of mine who didn't know any programming, and who probably isn't smarter than you, enjoyed working through it and has learned a lot.
Programming is hard, but a lot of good things are hard.
The first trick is to be able to describe how to solve a problem; and then break that description down into the smallest possible units and write it out such that there's absolutely no possibility of a misunderstanding, no matter what conditions occur.
Once you've got that done, it's fairly easy to learn how to translate it into a programming language.
Which is also why it helps, conversely, for reduction and rational thinking: The same skill that applies to formulating clear programs applies to formulating clear algorithms and concepts in any format, including thought.