learning how to read technical documentation is a skill in its own right, and we all need to practice it in order to get good at it.<p>obviously some documentation is better than others, and asking specific questions to fill in the gaps where documentation is unclear is a good thing to do.<p>however, programming is very much driven by learning how to find the answers to problems on your own. often those answers are in the documentation but not always. sometimes they haven&#x27;t been answered by anyone before and learning how to extrapolate from documentation to understand the behavior of programs in new situations is a skill that has to be developed.<p>and of course, ultimately, the final authoritative document on how a program will behave is the code itself. there are times when you have to read source. hopefully those are rare occasions, but being capable of doing it when necessary is yet another skill that needs to be developed. reading through an unfamiliar codebase is difficult and requires practice and experience.<p>all of these technical reading skills need to be practiced. beginners frequently make the mistake of denying themselves opportunities to practice those skills by simply asking for someone to tell them the answer.