Learning Fluency, by Sara Simon is a really interesting article and you should definitely read it. It’s kind of hard to summarize, what I got from it was that there are a lot of parallels between learning natural languages and learning to program, one of which is that rote memorization is both really useful and really underrated. Variables and loops are really boring for experienced programmers (which I’m suspicious is why most programming tutorials zip past them pretty quickly), but just like it’s really hard to tell someone how to get to the grocery store in a new language until you’ve memorized enough words, it’s really hard to build a program before you’ve memorized enough programming constructs.
Another good point Sara makes is that not everyone learns the same way. Some people are happy to jump into a project and learn as they go, and other people need more structure to get started. That doesn’t make anyone wrong, but it does mean we need resources for more than just one kind of learner.
Learning Fluency is a bit of a long read but it won’t take your whole lunch break either.