I tried that when I started in the fall of '09 and it failed miserably. When I came back this summer after intensively studying C and computer systems in general, things went a LOT smoother.
If you want to learn that way, you have to be incredibly tenacious. Some people are, some people aren't, but I think my time was better served by learning all the dependencies and then breezing through it when I was in the right place. I mean, you could learn Organic Chemistry and just backtrack to learn Chemistry where applicable, but that's a very hard way of doing it.
I tried that when I started in the fall of '09 and it failed miserably. When I came back this summer after intensively studying C and computer systems in general, things went a LOT smoother.
I'm not doubting your story, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule. Con Kolivas, who has written some interesting/thought-provoking schedulers for the Linux kernel (and stirred up some politics along the way) had never touched C before jumping in. (http://apcmag.com/interview_with_con_kolivas_part_1_computin...)
I completely agree. There certainly are bright people out there. What I'm saying is, I consider myself to be about average intelligence, and so my example is probably more typical, although I do concede there are probably outliers.
If you want to learn that way, you have to be incredibly tenacious. Some people are, some people aren't, but I think my time was better served by learning all the dependencies and then breezing through it when I was in the right place. I mean, you could learn Organic Chemistry and just backtrack to learn Chemistry where applicable, but that's a very hard way of doing it.