[linux-audio-dev] Best road to audio programming happiness?

I was hoping someone could help me with my first newbie steps in linux audio programming. I finally made it over to Linux, and discovered that I arrived here before cubase and fruityloops did. They never did what I wanted them to anyway. *sob*. Anyhoo, now that I'm over them, I would love to get cracking on some chunky audio projects but I'm a bit unsure of a kind of "best practises" approach for audio programming. What should I study? Whats the best way to go?! I have done some messing around with SDL and that seems pretty cool - cross platform, good graphic capabilites, and the audio is really simple. The faq says "low level support for audio" - is it low enough?! Is it useless? Ive really gotten into audio programming, but the stuff I'm making is currently all over the place (like this message) using different snippets of code and tutorials I've found here and there. Half of the sources are old, so I don't know which path I should be following. Any hints would be appreciated! Earle