[dennybritz]

If your goal is to learn, I believe this is THE way to do it. My experience has been that reading about something complex without attempting it first isn't effective. If you are not familiar with the problems you won't understand or appreciate the solutions. It's like listening to a lecture about rocket science without a background in Physics - there is useful information, but you won't be able to process or connect them to anything you know. And that also means you won't retain the information.

Of course there is a limit to this. It wouldn't make sense to intentionally avoid looking up solutions if you are stuck on a specific problem for several hours or days. But IMO it also doesn't make sense to read a whole textbook without trying to implement anything. What has worked well for me is to do it in an iterative fashion. Read when necessary.