[52-6F-62]

Not OP, but that's certainly one way some of us learn. Usually you combine methods— supplement knowledge from various streams to gain a fuller picture. There are also a ton of other great online courses and videos of lectures for free online (these days).

REPL's are also great tools for running exercises to test your knowledge. It's hard to lie to yourself— if you care— you either begin to understand or you don't. If you don't, your work will suffer.

I cared— but I was inclined to. You don't sit in the basement as a kid trying to get your mum's old 80286 to do something after you found the BASIC prompt because you want to play ping pong all day.