I'm currently reading a fascinating book called "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" written by Douglas Hofstadter. Its been quite a good book and the latest chapter I just read has been quite entertaining.
Let me first introduce a few terms/concepts: 1) Holism - This is the belief that the sum is more than the sum of its parts. Its a little easier to explain in terms of what it isn't. It isn't reductionism.
2) Reductionism - This is the belief that the sum is made up of its constituent parts and nothing more and nothing less.
For example, in the human body, you can break an particular organ down into its biological pieces (cells). Then you can break the cells into their chemical makeup (molecules). Then you can break those up into their physical components (atoms) and although it may be quite tedious, you could theoretically describe an organ in terms of its physical construction of atoms (or perhaps even deeper with sub-atomic particles) but you get the point.
As another example, let's take the brain to demontrate the concept of holism. A reductionist approach would be to break the brain up into smaller and smaller and more distinct or specific pieces. Let's not get too far and just say that your brain is made up of a bunch of neurons. A holistic approach would say, you can't tell me that the firing of neurons can adequately explain consciousness, or the concept of "I". The persona is that extra piece that can't be broken down into its constituent parts.
You could use the same concept with computers and programming languages. These two approaches rely on levels of abstraction. The deeper down you go, the more precise you get, but the more tedious it is to get any useful information out. You miss the forest for the trees. On the contrary, the higher up you go (the more chunking or summarizing) of groups of more detailed items, the easier it is to understand and conceptualize but the less true detail you know or understand about how the system actually works.
Let's take a little more abstract example. Hofstadter uses the following image to illustrate a point.
Unfortunately its a little small, but what do you see? Which word do you pick out? Some may say I see the words Holism and Reductionism. Others may say they see the word MU. It really depends on what level you are looking at it from. If you get a larger copy of this image, you'll actually see that the letters of the word Holism and Reductionism are curvy in nature and that's because each letter in those words is actually also written using the word MU. MU is the chinese word that means nothingness. Zen Buddhism uses the term to "unask" a question that doesn't really have a definite answer. Its their way of saying "it depends".
Let's try another one
This one is a little trickier. What do you see here? Here is what I see.
Option 1: J. S. Bach
Option 2: Fermat
Did you also notice that the letters get smaller or larger depending on how you look at them? If you look at the first have as the letters that make up the larger letters, you'll notice that J. S. Bach the letters progressively get larger and continue to do so but you have to change your perspective and use the larger letters to complete the name, but the letters do get progressively larger. If you use the name Fermat, you have to reverse the process and start with the larger letters and notice they start large, and then convert to the letters that make up the larger letters, but you'll notice they get progressively smaller.
The point here is that there is no ultimate answer. It all depends on what level you are descibing the object or sytem. The answer is MU.
Now, how is this relevant? Let's apply this to how we learn. Most times we think in holistic terms. We want to see the big picture or accomplish some goal so we think in terms of the end-goal. For example, we want to learn how to use a computer, but we don't necessarily want to learn how the software interacts with the hardware in translating code from one layer of abstraction to another all the way down until the hardware understands it. We just want to open the internet and get where we want. There are two problems with this approach.
1. If you spend all your time just using tools when they work correctly, when there is a problem, you'll be completely frustrated since you won't know how to fix it.
2. Once you get familiar with a certain program or set of favorites and build it into your routine, you'll eventuall reach the edge of what you are comfortable doing and when it comes time to extend your knowledge, or put it to the test in a different context, you'll find yourself really having a really humbling experience.
The other approach (the way I'm prone to) of pouring over 700 - 1000 page books covering every minute detail of how something works down to the nth degree when you likely won't use more than half of that knowledge can be quite boring, time-consuming, and a waste of valuable time.
So what should one do? Like most circumstances, taking a hybrid approach is the best approach. Again, MU is the answer. It depends on your circumstances. So much of the time, we are so concerned with what the right answer is, we miss all of the other right answers.
Sp what do I take away from all of this? Well, the best approach is always a hybrid approach. Use the right tool for the right job. Keep an open mind. Look at things from other people's perspectives. You may just find something you didn't realize was there before.
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