If you have a short time to learn and do, what will be your strategy?

Question

I am interested to know how others learn and build something in a short time. For example, if you do know about using cryptography protocols, what will be your approach if you need to use an authentication library? What will be the balance to aim between depth and pragmatism ?

jlukecarlson · Accepted Answer

Personally, I might start by reading up on some background literature but ideally I'd move into a phase of building out an initial system as soon as possible.
It's only when you really try to build something that you uncover assumptions you made and aspects of the task that you don't truly understand. From there you can read further on a topic or try watching a lecture or two on the specific issue you encountered. Otherwise you may spend hours/days/months just passively learning without gaining fundamental understanding.
Eventually, you scrap everything from your first couple of attempts and actually put together a working solution.

ipnon · Answer

For a well defined field, the best text book is going to balance depth and breadth. For a research subject, you will need to read scientific papers until you reach the cutting edge. For a trend in the arts, you will need to follow the trendsetters on social media until you catch up to them.