I'm an opponent of the "just write code" approach, mainly because it's how I got started and now I regret it. I wrote some shagnasty code back in my early days (which as you can probably guess was CGI scripts). I think some of my misguided code came from my CS learning being in its infancy as well.

That's why I enjoyed learning Java, it wasn't very tolerant of my misgivings. However, that methodology only goes so far. TIMTOWDI is a great concept, but IMHO there is something to be said for learning to do things in the most efficient or maintainable way (not implying Java enforces either of those two concepts, rather learning would enforce those concepts) And for that reason I don't approve (personally) the "just write" approach, but what I call the workbook approach...write programs and keep reading.. don't stop either, let one guide you in the other. Let your programming interest guide your reading and your reading guide your style. *end of ramble*