Chapter 1 · Practice 2 of 3
Know why you are learning it, and let that set the depth
Why it matters
The reason decides how deep to go. Learning a framework to fix one bug in a legacy app needs very different depth from learning the language your new team writes every day.
| Reason | Depth to aim for |
|---|---|
| Fix or change one thing in existing code | Read enough to understand that area safely |
| Join a team that uses it daily | Idioms, tooling, testing and common libraries |
| Evaluate it for a project | Strengths, limits and a small prototype |
| Long-term specialisation | Internals, performance and the ecosystem |
Being honest about depth stops you spending a month on internals you will never need, or a weekend on basics when your job depends on mastery.
Do
- Match the depth of study to the reason
Avoid
- Studying everything about a technology before using any of it