Better to bite the bullet....try Verilog/VHDL these are easy to understand. I think you have a software background, you are thinking in terms of C, compilers etc. FPGAs are hardware and have no code as such.
To understand better I suggest you watch some tutorials on youtube, I found the Nandlogic tutorials to be very good and informative, they start from the basic and go on to complicated stuff. You should also consider buying a FPGA development board, I think a cheap one should be good.
You need to get over the software programming approach if you have to understand FPGA design.
I too have a strong software background, I have a Mojo-V3 kit, I started a week ago, and now I can flash LEDs, read push buttons etc using Verilog..
Remember no code is executed in FPGAs, there is no processor inside that is executing code. The program you make in Verilog/VHDL is synthesized to hard wired circuit inside the FPGA.