Well you don't get to see all the innerworkings. But being a practical person I must recomend Perl to start with. The point of doing programs are to make them work. My standpoint has always been C and C++ are good for designing complex things. But before that you have to get knowledge into to your mind. Learn things. i.e. One must crawl before when one can walk.

My point: If you really want to see what is going on under the hood learn to program Assembler. And what too forgiving when you screw up. No it's not!

Didn't come with on the first version of this message for some unknown reason:
When One starts with programming I think it is important to see results fast because you get tired fast if you don't get to see the end result. IMHO. Learning to program isn't about learning what is "under the hood". It is about to get the computer what you want it to do!