Programming

Hi all, I've been tinkering with programming for the last couple years as a hobby and am very interested in learning how to do it at a much deeper level.

I made an attempt to get deeper into it at the beginning of this year by reading some books and started with Eloquent Javascript. I got to around Chapter 6 and it started to get incredibly difficult. I didn't have a hard time understanding most of the concepts at a elementary level, but the examples and exercises that were utilized in the book seemed to jump up in complexity without much explanation at times. I remember spending a few hours on some of the provided examples where I was annotating the code just to help me understand blocks that were 10-12 lines long at most.

I'm not saying this isn't effective, but I guess I'm hoping to find something that ramps up at a bit more of a gradual pace so I don't feel like I'm stalling on one problem for far too long. Those moments can be incredibly frustrating and make the marathon of learning much harder.

I'd ideally like to utilize a resource that helps me compartmentalize the broader landscape of tools in the Javascript/React/Node.js world and then go back to a book like Eloquent Javascript and for further drilling etc.

That being said, I'm curious if The Odin Project is a good place to start? I was looking at the full stack javascript course and it looks like it does some Intermediate HTML/CSS which is definitely the skill range I'd consider myself in. For reference, I've got a lot of experience doing hobbyist server management with Ubuntu Server, Linux CLI programs, Unraid, Docker etc.

Note- I'd prefer an online resource that's free, which is why I ask about the odin project.