it would be appreciated if anyone who has an opinion or experience relating to using programming books would chime in the replies,
cuz i've always thought they are interesting and would be a useful way to learn as someone who's not an absolute noob to things, and also so i can progress at my own pace, unlike a video series. so i'm curious if anyone has anything to say or infodump on them. yes 
I taught myself C++, Javascript and Haskell out of physical books. So I can vouch that it works. Though, obviously, it depends on how good the book is. Learned a bunch of computer graphics/shader programming stuff that way, too. And some bioinformatics.
Ebooks are probably better than physical, since they're more likely to get updates. That's never stopped me from getting physical copies of things, though.
I liked https://learnyouahaskell.github.io/chapters.html - I think there are others in the series maybe, too, for other languages. I liked the C++ book, too, but it was... yegods, over a decade ago now, so I couldn't tell you what the title was. Javascript was that classic slim volume: "Javascript: The Good Parts" by Douglas Crockford.
Both, kinda? I work front to back, but then have it on hand to look stuff up for a little while when trying to do stuff in that language.
Or depending on the book, I might keep it around for referencing in general, if it's a good reference. But while I'm still initially learning, actually trying to use the language to do stuff helps me figure out where the holes in my understanding are that I can go back and review with better context. So, yeah, using it as a reference is also part of learning from it.
Of course, doing the exercises also kind of is that. If there are any. And if they're any good. And if I can get myself to do them, which I can't always. 🙃
@tajoma I usually read the official manuals, sometimes an official book (online), sometimes a draft of an official standard (or a PDF of the real thing if it's nice like for Scheme). I don't want yet another big book that assumes no prior programming experience, although some are ok with that.
The ones I have physically are LaTeX, TeX and related manuals; and a Daniel P. Friedman book (very unusual and engaging style, but I read it to be aware of new concepts, not to program).
The languages I program in now are the ones I've learned from the online official manuals.
I can't usefully focus on programming videos.
@tajoma learning through books is pretty fun! In the world of programming there’s a couple different types. Reference books, topical books, and tutorial books. I’d avoid reference books since you can get most of the value of reference by being good at finding digital docs. For either topical or tutorial it’s just a matter of what interests you the most!
My last book was a tutorial one “writing an interpreter in go”. This project really empowered me to stop shying away from reading
tajoma
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