I dont think we&#x27;re disagreeing. I don&#x27;t suggest speaking practice to the exclusion of literary practice. In this comment you acknowledge the importance of speaking practice. That&#x27;s what was missing from my reading of your first comment. I responded largely because I understood your comment to suggest (explicitly and through analogy) that new programmers study books <i>before</i> attempting to write code and interact with the community.<p>Cheers, sorry for the confusion.