When I first started learning to program, I don't even start with any mainstream programming language. I still remember fondly the Mediachance Multimedia Builder (MMB), it was the first thing that I learned back in 2012. It's a software that lets you create an app mainly for "autorun" for CD and thumb drive. It offers a simple to use and WYSIWYG editor and close to no coding skill to build an app. But it has a scripting support to create more complicated logic. This were my first experience with writing code.
As time progress, I learned HTML and CSS with Microsoft FrontPage 2003, then Adobe Dreamweaver CS5. Back then jQuery was the SOTA library for creating web apps. I also learned a bit about PHP but never really liked it.
Then I started learning about Visual Basic in Microsoft Office (VBA) and then I stumbled upon Visual Basic 6.0 where I can create a more "proper program" so to say. Windows Forms was my new toy. VB6 was already outdated in 2015, and I stared exploring .NET Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 Express. Back then there was no VS Community Edition and .NET is still a proprietary, compared to .NET 10 now which is open source. Various websites such as Stackoverflow, CodeProject, VBForums, CodePlex (now gone), Planet Source Code (now gone), random blogs, and MSDN (now MS Learn) were my primary source of learning materials. I also liked O'Reilly books as it provides a more concrete example of how things are done from an expert point of view (compared to random blogs).
I still used VB.NET until I changed to C# in late 2017. Then I got my first job in 2019 and was quite shocked to learn that I were assigned to a team with NodeJS as the main framework as I don't have any experience with it. My previous experience with reading technical blogs and documentations proved to be invaluable for my career. It allows me to learn new stuff quickly and adapt to strange areas such as web development using React/Vue (crazy gibberish: JSX)
My way of learning:
I remember switching from framework to framework, library to library, language to language, database to database. I never completely finished the project, but the journey learning various language, framework, libraries, and databases is the most fun thing about learning to program.
I argue that it is harder to start learning programming now even with abundance of resources, because the technological advancement and AI have gone so far that it is hard to learn the basics to the current industry standard. It would take a huge amount of time and efforts to understand the nuances of why certain application use X or Y approach. I still struggle when changing job because the tech stack is constantly changing.
If you're feeling lost and overwhelmed with the amount of information you need to learn, you're not alone. All great programmers have gone through similar process. I think having a mentor would be the best way to learn. Keep up the good work.