Teaching yourself to program

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I've been thinking recently about learning computer programming at home, but there are so many resources out there as far as tutorials, but I haven't found anything to actually check what you've learned outside of purely theoretical quizzes. Are there any pure autodidacts out there and how have you found it best to organize yourself and what have you used to check your progress? I'm looking to learn with minimal cost obviously:D

You can sit a large number of computer examinations in Prometric test centres.

E.g. Microsoft Certified Professional, Cisco Certified Network Affiliate, etc; I think you can sit programming courses too.

I've been professionally programming for thirty years. Can't say I've ever had the urge to "measure" what I know. I was always driven by wanting to write some useful little utility for myself or larger program. Selling the hobby developed software was never a consideration, though some of it has sold very well over the years. It has always been a race keeping up with new technologies. Some aspects of programming skills date very quickly, some come in useful for a lifetime. I've got a huge backlog of personal projects I'd like to do if I ever get the time. Until then I write what people ask me to write - it puts food on the table.
You have the advantage of a huge amount of online resources that didn't exist when I started programming 30 years ago. Free compilers, free tutorials. You are spoilt for choice. Good luck anyway.

What is the point of measuring what you know? The proper gauge of competence is not what you know but what you can do. This is certainly true of computer programming. The best thing to do is to actually set yourself a project that requires you to think through problems. Pick something that you are interested in and then write programs that you will find useful or at least personally satisfying. The more you write, the better you will become. Just as you cannot expect to be fluent in a foreign language by reading and memorizing books on grammar and syntax, you will never become proficient in a computer language just from reading books. Save your money and forget about testing unless the certification is needed to help land jobs.

The best test is did the program you made work or did it crash?

The next best test is to get 10 people to try using what you wrote and suggest improvements - these lead to ideas for further study

I get my wife to try out my simpler software such as shareware programs and sit watching where she has any difficulties understanding what to do or with the help instructions etc.

If a user has problems it isn't because they are stupid it is because you haven't made the software easy enough for them to understand or use - this is a good motto to design software by (even if the user is stupid! ) When I've worked in larger companies there have been whole teams dedicated to testing the software and others writing the help files etc so less of a problem there.

The problem is that when you write software yourself you know exactly how it works and how to use it. This may not be so intuitive for someone else. Other people can give very valuable feedback. They sometimes find the odd bug too by doing something (idiotic/unexpected) that you would never think to try - so you have to ensure all features of the code are "user proof" Nobody likes to see run-time errors.

Id just get stuck in and start with simple programs that you can test yourself to determine if they are working correctly

Example, a program which asks the user for 2 numbers, adds them together and dispays the result

Remember that a large proportion of programming is spent finding and fixing bugs, writing code that works first time is rare so developing your skills in understanding why a program doesn't work as expected and fixing the problem is a good test for yourself