I have the power to delete history? Cool. I never knew a suggestion of some starting points had so much power. Bene legere saecla vincere. To be clear, I suggest beginners start with second-generation tutorials rather than original posts, then graduate to post searches on relevant topics. I do not recommend Weimer's materials as they have been subsumed into modern modding tutorials (and some of the stuff he does has been replaced with more non-destructive ways of working through the bigg's changes to WeiDU).
Back on topic, if you stick just to PPG tutorials (since it is JCompton's house here), Phobossus, the following are available as relatively comprehensive approaches to tutorials, with enough depth to get you into understanding what is going on. I started ith Blue's, then went to Ghreyfain's, then bugged Grim Squeaker until he finally got me onto the right track:
Blue -
http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,61.0.html - definitely doesn't answer posts much, but this one rocks for beginners and approaches things step by step.
Ghreyfain -
http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,52.0.html - pretty much no longer around, but the contents are solid and approachable.
Ghreyfain -
http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,53.0.html - NPC Dialog 101 - follows on to the first.
For google searches, I continue to recommend searches for the above folks. Having worked my way through the first generation posts on all of the big forums while learning myself, there are several posts which Grim Squeaker, berelinde, and Jastey have responded to with basically full length tutorials, broken down with examples and worked through patiently, with follow up. Plus, they still answer questions via PM or post. I would recommend my own help posts, but 1. they are often over-wordy, and 2. I like analogies, so for ESL folks they can be hard to follow (sample
[here] ).
The vast majority of the other posters mentioned in this thread are great "I know what my question is so I can search for it" posters - CamDawg, for example, excells at patching and debugging explanations, JCompton at global authorship issues and philosophy/history, SConrad and Nythrun at "deep-code" (PHP_EACH and GET_ARRAY and BIG_FANCY_PATCH_HERE) stuff, Zyraen at truly pushing the boundaries of CHAIN construction, and Theaceface's materials are a good summary (3rd generation) of the posts and materials found all over the place, so are a solid place to start as well. The Bigg is not one to be trifled with - ask only when it is worth his time or (rightly) suffer his wrath (and you have exhaused the documentation). There are lots of other folks who are out there too, but you will get to know them via their back posts and answers. A comprehensive list would be thousands of posters.
Esto perpetue, et sic de ceteris. And good research *starts* with a google search. If it ends there, then we move off of (mis) quoting Latin maxims and begin (correctly) quoting The Princess Bride.