[simonw]

There are many, many things in life where you can evaluate if you are learning the thing despite not having access to an expert guide who can verify what you are learning.

Cooking: does the food taste better as you learn more?

Programming: are you able to build functioning software that does what you want it to do, better than you could earlier on in your path?

Fixing a broken dishwasher: does the dishwasher work again now?

The idea that learning only works if you have an expert on hand to verify that you are learning is one of those things that seems obviously true until you think harder about it.