Suggestions on where to start programming needed

[AMC258]

I seriously recommend reading the Libraries and Devices book beginning to end.  I got my big Amiga start reading that book for OS1.3.  I couldn't have done without it.  Every now and then I pull that book out to read the first portion just to keep from forgetting anything.  There are a lot of basic fundamentals that are VERY important and should not be skipped.  You need to be *very* familiar with Exec and Intuition.  Then you can go on to DOS if need be.  But, I don't know of a good source for information on that other than the DOS Autodocs.  And those can leave you scratching your head.
If you have programmed on other platforms, clear your head of anything you learned before you start learning Amiga.  Don't try and make AmigaOS work like MS-DOS or Windows.  Amiga is a different animal and it works really good if you work it the way it was designed.

[AMC258]

Way back when I got my first Amiga and decided to start programming it and stop programming my peecee, I fully intended to learn 68k ASM, as I was well versed in x86 ASM (of which I've forgotten already!), and 65xx ASM (self-taught by TRIAL AND ERROR).  But, even back then when '060 boards weren't quite available, there was this talk of getting away from 68k and moving Amiga to some alternate CPU.

I recommend sticking to C (as much as I despise that language) for the sake of compatibility and portability.  If tomorrow someone develops some CPU that obsoletes all CPUs on the market and we start running AmigaOS 6.0 on it, there will still be a C compiler for that.