Roja wrote:Sami wrote:Both aren't ideal IMO.
For you.

Its definitely a personal preference issue.
Well in the case of that statement that he made, I think it was a generalization and a common misconception about learning from books, like I have shown it to be in my previous post.
Roja wrote:I've never seen one that has any substantial trial-and-error.
You must not be looking hard enough!

heh, no seriously though, learning through trial and error is more about your learning style and how well you know how to learn, as opposed to what it is you are learning from.
So every tutorial out there doesn't explicitly state "keep trying and failing and learn from your mistakes" but it's a given that you do that in those tutorials. The very same thing is true with books. Like I always say, books are merely a more organized and well put together tutorial, that tends to cover a wide array of topics, and of course, sold in tangible form.
Roja wrote:Further, the examples require substantial typing in, and aren't usually interesting or compelling.
I guess that might hold true in regards to some books, but many have CDs that come with examples, and the ones that do not have CDs, tend to have a website where users can download the examples and gather errata. I've seen many Wrox, Peachpit press, and O'Reilly books that did not come with a CD and had every example code online. The two PHP wrox books I have and the one PHP book from Peachpit I have all have this nifty feature if you do not wish to re-type the examples.
Personally, I'd rather just re-type them, because that's more hands-on instead of copy and pasting it (like one would tend to do in an online tutorial). I did that when I first started so when it came time to using what I learned without the book around, I've had more practice writing the code myself.
Roja wrote:If you get bored, disinterested, or tired of typing in code, you won't get ANY fundamentals.
Same can be said about most anything, including learning via tutorials. If you aren't willing to put in the work to learn the material, then you shouldn't be expecting top notch results (because you most likely won't get them).
Roja wrote:Some people are geared for more hands-on learning, some people are geared for more book learning.
That's I guess where we fundamentally disagree. I've done a lot of book learning (I frequent the tech section of the local Library) and every time it's been very hands on. So for me, and some people I've talked to who agree with me, book learning and hands-on learning are one and the same thing.