I think ya might be on to something. For me at least, Most of my skill has come from wanting/needing a program that does "X".

Maybe the people that learn this way aren't asking for help; they're just too busy getting it done (poorly, but learning along the way). The folks who want to be programmers (as apposed to that first group) ask a lot of questions about how to be a programmer, or how to program, even though they don't necessarily have a problem to solve, and these aren't questions with direct answers.

And so we punt to books. "Oh yeah, pick up a copy of 'Dive into Python.'" "Is that how you learned?" "Nope" "Um..." "I'm kinda busy, but I'll help if you get stuck" "Uh... Ok i guess"

On the other hand, I value the heck out of good reading material when I am learning, So that I can see how the problem I'm trying to solve is solved by a more skilled author, or maybe just so that I can learn some "beginner" techniques I might not have pick up along the way.

tl'dr: books are good, learning by doing is good, learning by doing books is ???

I think you might be on to something. For me at least, most of my skills have come from wanting/needing a program that does "X".

Maybe the people that learn this way aren't asking for help; they're just too busy getting it done (poorly, but learning along the way). The folks who want to be programmers (as apposed to that first group) ask a lot of questions about how to be a programmer, or how to program, even though they don't necessarily have a problem to solve, and these aren't questions with direct answers.

And so we punt to books. "Oh yeah, pick up a copy of 'Dive into Python.'" "Is that how you learned?" "Nope" "Um..." "I'm kind of busy, but I'll help if you get stuck" "Uh... OK, I guess"

On the other hand, I value the heck out of good reading material when I am learning, so that I can see how the problem I'm trying to solve is solved by a more skilled author, or maybe just so that I can learn some "beginner" techniques I might not have pick up along the way.

TLDR: books are good, learning by doing is good, learning by doing books is ???