Can't find advice on how to get started....really started

Are you asking what "parse" means? Or are you complaining in general that "beginner" documentation contains technical terms you're not familiar with?

If the latter, could you provide a pointer to the offending text?

If the former, "parse" means approximately "derive meaning from a set of symbols." Humans "parse" language all the time, figuring out what is meant by a printed (or spoken) phrase; language and linguistics majors get more formal, so they can tell you why a phrase like "time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" is funny. Computer programs lack "intelligence", so they obey pretty strict rules and have a very limited set of symbols that they can parse, which is why computer languages look so weird.