[estebank]

I disagree slightly, as I don't think that following that path of reading instead of jumping in is inherently worse.

Just jumping into writing code is great for motivational reasons because you'll have something tangible, something to be proud about and to help you get excited and keep learning. But you'll still lack insight in a lot of the surrounding environment, things that any programmer should know.

Attempting to do this the other way, reading as much as possible and as in depth as possible, will be good to give you some insight, but you'll have nothing to show for it until you start coding and it'll still take time for you to learn some stuff that can only really be understood with practice.

What I'm trying to get at is that it doesn't really matter how you start, as you are going to have to dedicate 10,000 hours to learn, polish and excel at any craft.