Crazy Elon? Okay, but heed his advice if you're learning a computer language.

Where most learners go wrong—and don't even know it.

I’ve spent years trying to get coding students to avoid this fatal mistake. Elon says it well:

It’s important to view knowledge as a sort of semantic tree. Make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e., the trunk and big branches before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.

When I asked self-learners, “Did you finish the last computer language book you tried?” more than three-quarters said no.

Why did they throw in the towel?

The Number 1 reason: they got discouraged.

The further they progressed in the book, the more lost they got. And all because they tried to learn coding the same way they’d learned academic subjects in high school and college—by racing through a book at ten or twelve pages an hour. But when you’re learning a programming language, consuming mass quantities of text won’t grow the trunk and big branches that Elon is talking about.

Coding is a craft, not a science. It’s more like woodworking than biology. Which means you’ll never learn the fundamental principles unless you close the book every five or ten minutes so you can spend the next ten or twenty minutes practicing.

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So before you even start reading, find a place to practice.

Practice at a free code playground.

Google free online code playground for [the language you’re learning]. Bookmark it. Every time you learn something new in the book, stop reading and practice what you just read about on the playground.

Another way to practice:

On my website, you’ll find free live coding exercises, with instant feedback. There are 1,000 exercises for each language I write about. You’re welcome to use them even if you don’t own my books. Exercises are available for JavaScript, Python, HTML & CSS, and jQuery.