Scripting

[Cranky Old Man]

While it sounds nuts to not start with a manual, this is often a good strategy. You dive in, see how things are supposed to work, try to isolate what is making what work, and THEN read up on the details in manuals.
An extreme example:
Would you have read a C++ manual, the keyword glossary index starts at "__abstract", while if you would have opened up some C++ code, you'd see that the most common keyword is "if".