[pseudonym]

you don't have to remember the lines and lines of code - no more than you have to remember sentence upon sentence of english.. You just learn how to use the grammar and vocabulary, and then you can read/write.

It takes a while to learn a programming language - but once you've learnt one, it's fairly easy to learn another as they all borrow from eachother.

I'd start with a scripting language like JavaScript (Web pages), PHP (Serverside programming) or ActionScript (Macromedia Flash) to learn the concepts, and then go for it with C/Java etc. That's the path I took anyhow...