Me and my programming buddy, (Si) set a little challenge and then after we finish we exchange source code and see the difference in the ways we have implemented the task.
Well, first challenge is set............. PONG! so off I go then, i'll be learning a bit of collision detection on the way and I'll post our results soon.
We use C++ and SDL.
Anyway, SDL is an awesome place to start for a beginner. If you need just the basics to get an image up on the screen, I have some quick and easy tutorials on my site that you could use.