Yeah, the book is quite interesting especially in the context of advice you see online regarding learning about programming. It seems the simplest advice would be to just read the documentation then make things, when you struggle refer back to the documentation. Whereas most advice you read on social media is to pay for a course.

Throughout the book you keep hearing stories about how application and spacing are critical for reinforcing concepts.

I don't have it in front of me but I remember they presented one study that students who took a practice exam did better than those that just read the material and took the exam.

In the book they mention often that rereading material isn't useful or an effective way to learn.

    Whereas most advice you read on social media is to pay for a course.

Sounds like the ads of our time. I.e. influencers paid to do promotions. Not unlike the ads for certifications and courses before really. Certifications are BS. Someone with zero experience but "certs" is not gonna win any favours with me in an interview. Show you can do the job. A university degree is somewhere in between as there are many ways to get one. The BS - cert kind of - way and the "real" way.

    It seems the simplest advice would be to just read the documentation then make things, when you struggle refer back to the documentation. 

This has always been how I have learned. Learning by doing. Even in university. Just practice basically. Do whatever you need to learn or remember over and over with some time in between. Just like any other muscle exercise: reps!

Spaced "repetition is the mother of learning" is what my parents always told me. Minus the "spaced" part.

And yes, that's how we learned for most (good) university courses. We had "labs" every week. It was non-mandatory and while some profs would give you credits towards the final grade if you took part in them, the idea really was to get you to practice things over and over with some time in between. By the time you were learning for the final exam, it was already at least the second or third repetition of applying the knowledge.

Reading docs (or the book / your lecture notes) when trying to apply the knowledge is OK. Just reading it multiple times but not actually trying to use it really doesn't do anything in my experience. I passed my initial "learn a programming language" course at university without ever going to a lecture past the first two for example. I was using said language to actually build something that required what I knew was gonna be the main part of the exam (boolean logic - duh - and concurrency - way more fun) for building some actually useful tool for a friend.