Microcontroller Advice

[PsychoMaster]

Hello All
I really only wanted to learn stuff that is straight forward  (uses pots that you can feel working and none of this SMT stuff) only I saw one of them transistor testers based around a Mega 328p and was blown away by it .I can't miss out on that stuff can I?
I know nothing about m/c's and would like to be pointed where to start .What manufacturer and what programming language is used? .Are libraries easy to use  and easy to acquire? I do a bit of Python code for being lazy on the computer and wondered if this can carry across.I never thought I'd be interested until I saw the possibilities .
  Thanks

[daybyter]

Arduinos are cheap and there are lots of tutorials for them.

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/HomePage

http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/