Tweaking My Learning

As an older senior software engineer, I picked up JavaScript gradually by using it -- looking up what I needed when I needed it. That works, and as long as you get things done, it’s usually good enough. Learning by doing is often recommended because it tends to stick. The downside is that it can leave gaps in your knowledge. Mine sometimes feels like Swiss cheese. The problem is the “unknown unknowns” -- you don’t know what you’re missing. At the beginning of April 2026, I came up with an idea for a web application. I don’t expect to make much (if any) money from it, but I’m building it anyway. Since revenue isn’t the goal, I’m treating learning as the return on my time investment. To that end, I’m currently reading JavaScript - The Comprehensive Guide by Phillip Ackermann. It's just under 1,000 pages; at 50 pages per day, I plan to finish it in about three weeks. So far, most of what I’ve read is familiar. I created a document in Obsidian for things I didn’t already know. For each…