programming will definately help with maya. as maya is a bunch of mel scripts [and an API and other stuff of course]
i suggest start like everyone else, ; by doing basic tut [this site has free tuts, and www.learningmaya.com has tons, and also read the docs and do the tuts that came with the alias discs 2 [if u have].
and search for simple questions on google or the docs or even other forums to find your answers [before you ask something that has been answered 10,00023456 times it happens:p ]
good luck. and practice makes perfect....