[k_]

It's still [one of] the best way to acquire solid knowledge of a language (and then its frameworks). I agree that this might not be the funniest nor the quickest way, though.

But it's not that bad when you have someone behind you, helping you when really needed, and showing you what you can achieve afterwards.

Jumping into JQuery, copy/pasting snippets from google and such won't (well, not often anyway) bring novices very far. Plus, they'll have a hard time learning other frameworks if needed (new job, etc.).