Program Planning

Your first significant piece of software is going to suck. Organizationally it will be a mess, with things declared as objects that should be classes and things declared as classes that should be modules of functionality. There's really no way around this, even with copious amounts of UML and CRC cards and a design document as thick as a tree. As a beginning programmer, you simply do not have the experiential context necessary to make effective use of standardized software design principles.

Don't worry about it. Program, program, and program some more, and the way in which these things are planned (and why they are that way) will become clearer and more useful. And if by any chance your plan was for your "first significant piece of software" to be your game development masterwork, you need a better plan.

Sneftel is right. You need to go and make a bunch of simple things before you can even think about making anything significant. For the time being just jump right in. You'll learn a lot faster that way and when it comes to planning something bigger you'll actually have some experience to base your plan off of.

Thanks for the tips guys - I'll just dive in to some small programs and try to get some more experience before tackling "the big one".