A good way to learn programming is to write a program that does one very simple thing, such as displaying a message. Then read and learn a little more about programming, and add to your program, or write a new program, so that it does a little more:
learn -> do -> learn -> do -> learn -> do ...
You don't have to either trust or distrust things you read because you can immediately test what they have to say.
For example, if someone were to say that to write a Javascript program that adds two numbers, you can go the address bar in your web browser (the box that normally has a web address like "http://arclanguage.org/), and type in:
javascript:alert(3+4)
you don't have to believe them or not believe them, you can try it for yourself.
Or, if you read in the Arc tutorial that typing in
(+ 1 2)
will display "3", you can go try it for yourself.
You can try Arc without installing anything on your computer, as palsecam has Arc running on a web page for you: http://dabuttonfactory.com:8080/
If you'd like to run Arc on your computer, feel free to ask for help if you run into any trouble installing it (Arc is new so it isn't as easy to install as some other languages).
