Title pretty much says it all. I want to use the ESP to give the MSP430 WiFi connectivity. But I'm not sure how I should program the ESP 12-F by itself since it has no I/O ports (USB). Would I have to use a USB to TTL serial adapter?
The ESP-12 should have shipped with the default AT command firmware. This allows you to talk to it via serial and send commands (that start with AT, a remnant of the Hayes telephone modem) to configure it and have it connect. You can send data via serial after the connection is made.
There is plenty of documentation on this. A search should easily find what you need.