Self-teaching programmer here. Extensive IT background, and have had a CS class or two in public "B School" type university. After Codecademy, Learn x the hard way a little bit, and even command line hacking with REPL's I have been able to conquer my fear of the abstraction layer. And although I am able to look at programs that exist and I use from a programmer's mindset, I still can not understand how to model my ideas and build them out. I think with a better understanding of core CS concepts and a thorough mental whipping I will be in a better shape. My plan is to get through:
1. SICP/SICP Python
2. {Insert famous Data Structures/ Algorithms book here}
3.Find some open source project on Github of what I want to do, and extend it or even better refactor it.
From there I will be ready to feel more like a programmer. Cause I really breeze through these tutorials, but seem lost thereafter. I am not seeking prodigy status, but I know that I can become a very formidable programmer sooner or later.