I think both points being made here are correct. It's true that having knowledge of libraries is valuable, because as you say, how will you get anything done o

I think both points being made here are correct. It's true that having knowledge of libraries is valuable, because as you say, how will you get anything done otherwise? However, there's a certain type of learning that only occurs once, typically when you're first learning to program. For example: you need to download data from a web page and parse it. If you're a total newbie, you first need to understand that there's a protocol (HTTP) involved, and that libraries exist to parse the markup language (HTML). Just knowing that those libraries should be available in your language (standard or otherwise - another piece of knowledge) is valuable. But once you've done it once in one language, you'll know the approach for all other languages. Another way to put it is that it's all important, depending on which problems you're trying to solve. But putting all your eggs in one basket is problematic and does not necessarily guarantee programming skill.