Ohm's law is a important starting point (and will explain a lot of the basics if you branch off from there search terms you don't know). However, I think the b

Ohm's law is a important starting point (and will explain a lot of the basics if you branch off from there search terms you don't know). However, I think the biggest problem for why resistors / capacitors / inductors / transformers are confusing for people coming from a software background is that they tend to (a) have to do with power circuitry, (b) be backed by physics that are non-digital, & (c) be fundamentally parallel/functional in nature. So a lot of intuition we have about digital state wrt imperative languages makes analog power circuitry design / function seem bizarre. If you're really curious, I'd try and find an introductory text to basic power circuitry design (good starting point: how to build a passive & active AC/DC transformer). Most of the components get used in that context and if you can understand them there then you can understand them anywhere.