Agreed and beautifully put, but perhaps I can expand a little. Gaining applied knowledge is not a spectator sport. I can say this both from personal experienc

Agreed and beautifully put, but perhaps I can expand a little. Gaining applied knowledge is not a spectator sport. I can say this both from personal experience (at least in math and CS) and from being told it by people far wiser than I am. In math, I always try to figure out a valid proof before reading it, and it helps me understand it much better than just reading. In programming, I will read the example first, but then I try to implement it and modify it. No matter how well I think I understand it on first reading, I learn a great deal in trying to implement and play with it.