nisim

I'm currently learning PHP which is my first programming/scripting language. I know html/css rather well and am grasping the concepts of PHP pretty well too. I have sort of hit a "plateau" of sorts though. This comes from a lack of understanding conceptualy not with syntax. You see, I'm a quite logical thinker but the concept of programming is elluding me. I know that it is just giving a dumb machine a bunch of commands but that's it.

I can't really put it fully in words but could someone maybe help me with the logic/concept behind programming? As it stands, I can follow simple programming rules but have no design concept. If I were asked to write, say, a user login script I would be totally lost. I just can't yet grasp building a script/program from the ground up. I know that this is an intergal part of being a good programmer so any help/ideas?

Any suggestions on just great tips that helped you all in learning your first languages would be helpful too.

thanks