Wow, thanks for taking the time for such a comprehensive response/advice. I appreciate. Actually I talked to a few programmers already and no one ever has given me the advice to start with SQL. However, it seems reasonable to me.
That's actually a tragedy, and I've been guilty of not recommending SQL first, myself. Part of the problem is that SQL by itself is not flashy. It doesn't have a web interface that you'd like to show to anyone (you'd need HTML/CSS/JS skills for that). And once you build your database you generally can't just tell the public to connect to it over the Web -- you need some kind of server layer for that, written in PHP or Ruby or Java or C# or another of the usual suspects. So starting your web development career by learning SQL is like learning to fence by spending the first year doing legwork exercises, never picking up a sword until the second year.
But, as my fencing instructor once told me: That's what many elite European fencing schools used to require of their apprentice fencers. [1] And it wouldn't hurt at all to approach web development the same way. Learn the heart of the matter first, and save the ephemera for later. If you can compose a sensible data model (that you can drive using SQL queries from the command line or -- plug your ears, fellow Linux coders! -- Microsoft Access), you'll have a better understanding of the underlying technology of web apps than a surprising number of professional developers.
And you're a biz dev guy, so anything you can learn about databases will probably be a win for your C.V. Just be careful: If the word gets out at your company that you can wrangle SQL queries, you might become very popular among the other MBAs.
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[1] They should have required it of me. As a fencer, I moved like a dump truck with one wheel missing. But it sure was fun swinging the sword around ineffectively! I swished through a lot of air!
But I believe it to be the most powerful programming concept you can learn, simply due to the answers it can help you find.
sql is very limiting ... to me, that's enough to justify not investing more time in sql
do it like 4 - 10 hrs each day ... come back a month later, if you find yourself still doing it then go for programming