I have a hard time understanding how anyone really learns any technical topic without working with the technology and exploring the reference I think you'd be

I have a hard time understanding how anyone really learns any technical topic without working with the technology and exploring the reference I think you'd be surprised. I learned C and C++ and never looked at the reference (standard) for either until far after I was proficient (with C I learned it a fair bit before a standard existed). I learned by reading Stroustrup, K&R, Lippman, etc... I learned JS by reading Crockford -- and while I've spent a fair bit of time looking at the jQuery reference docs, I don't think I've ever looked at the JS reference docs. I think a lot of people learn languages/frameworks/tools from reading blogs/books/webpages/videos and not the actual reference docs.