I feel like I'm in the minority in that I prefer to NOT learn things by just "diving in". I am much more successful when I start from the absolute fundamentals.

I feel like I'm in the minority in that I prefer to NOT learn things by just "diving in". I am much more successful when I start from the absolute fundamentals. There are objective pros and cons to either approach, but I suspect the success factor is based on one's personality (or some such). I definitely find value in the project based approach, but I guess I'd say that I tend to want just a little bit more "here's the fundamentals" first, before transitioning into that mode. As a generalization. But Programming Common Lisp isn't bad for this reason, it's just a hair short of what I personally might consider "the perfect Lisp book" if I could imagine up such a thing.