What do you know? I mean whats your level, and where do you want to get? You can read a lot of literature and come out less smart than you are now. What you get out of things is really dependent on what you knew going into the process. Theres several factors involved:
- what is your mathematical skill level? basic arithmetic skills? do you know Boolean logic? what about Vectors? Linear algebra? Calculus?
- Any prior programming skill
- how well do you know how to do things in maya? In general scripting is just the same thing you do in the graphical user interface. In fact maya will give you clues as to what the script corresponding thing you did is. The only real difference is that scripts can loop, which makes tedious tasks easy to handle. The second difference is that computers do not see anything so you must rely on systematic thinking to figure out your place in the world.
- do you know how to rig in Maya? Ever used the connection editor? Even opened the hypergraph window and looked at construction history chains?
- Have you analyzed what it is you do all day long? If so what things do you repeat over and over again. Scripting is about tackling those things. So its best to start with something you know how to do.
- do you understand what it is your computer does? It actually helps.
and then as last piece of advice learn to think without the gui for a while, it helps. Trying to tackle what does stuff and how guis work at the same time is a bit counter productive because they do same thing in opposite directions. And last but not least the best way to use scripting is when you know you don't need to script because you already have that function. Ive literary seen persons who have written years worth of maya scripts and totally waste their time. Because they didnt learn to find out what they need to do and what not.
dvds
A video tutorial on scripting is probably the most boring thing you'll ever see.
Start by atleast skimming this:
http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2011help/index.html?url=./files/Background.htm,topicNumber=d0e167996
The definte and only real reference is:
http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2011help/Commands/index.html
you also have a slightly faster local copy of these in your Maya install. Reading other material on mel scripting and skipping these resources IS A CERTAIN FAILURE
You may also want to reflect on:
http://kawagner.blogspot.com/2008/05/whats-makes-programming-so-difficult.html