I think you go with van halen's suggestion better. A teacher can point out your mistake and prevent you from making your mistakes into a habit, which is a very bad thing for guitarist.
If you still insist on starting out your own, learn chords and move on from there.
ya. eitherway you can use songs to learn chords, familiarize yourself with those fingers placement then slowly your path will light up and you will know where to go lol.. btw what kind of songs are you going to learn?
oh great another old school rocker! learn to read tabs if you wanna take the short cut, but also learn a bit of theory la. at least know what you are playing.
Establish whether you want to be a rhythm guitarist or a lead guitarist and then concentrate.
But learn to play both decently well first. Lead guitarist that can't keep beat or keep in time with the rest of the band is useless.
Good lead guitarist that can read tabs fast but can't even string three chords together is also useless.