Interested at becoming more proficient in debugging and compiling Octave

[bramblewood]

I have been studying mathematical physics and signal processing for a few years 
now.  However I have almost no programming, compiling or debugging experience.  
I saw that octave was such a dynamic scientific tool and have become interested 
in these computer systems aspects of a well run version of it.  When I tried 
reading the file code after downloading the latest version of octave I realized 
that some background in program engineering would greatly help my scientific 
work.  
What would you recommend, as far as informational web sites or books go, to 
help me compile and debug a solid version of the program and, if there are any,
What types of other key ideas or pointers should I keep in mind being 
relatively new to programming?

Thanks very much- Patrick address@hidden