My favourite thing to do (and what I do in my "spare time" when I'm "not coding"), is sit on a cafe patio early in the mornings, sipping coffee, reading computer books. I do it at least three times a week for upwards of two hours each visit.

It's mostly books on theory that I read because I learned years ago not to buy books on a specific version of something (because it'll be outdated by the time it hits the stores) - unless it's a language that I want to dive deep into or something completely new to me - like React or Laravel. I find that even "dated" books have relevant material to learn in them.

Most books, provided the content is good, I have read 2-3 times from cover to cover. I literally study the sh!t out of them until I've absorbed and fully understood the material! I even have a colouring system when using sticky notes in my book so I know where to go back to, and why. Over time, most of those sticky notes come out as I start to grasp those concepts and/or incorporate items from the book into my projects, helping me to solidify and know that I understand the material.

I spend a fair bit of money each years on books. I hate that I have gotten rid of many of them over the years because I'd have quite the museum of computer books if I'd held onto them all! I don't know if it's because of not growing up in the digital age, but I simply don't absorb digital material the same way I do as reading a book.

I also learn from watching others work. You'd be amazed some of the cool shortcuts you can learn just by watching someone else work, and when they have a pause in their concentration asking, "hey, that thing you did back there that did this, how did you do that!?" I learned PhotoShop by watching a couple of my former roommate's work sessions and asking her questions at appropriate times.

Well I'm reading Types and Programming Languages. It's about the fundamentals of type systems. I feel it'd be hard to get the level of depth from tutorials and videos. Books seem useful for things like that.

For most programming things, practice is the most important part, so something more interactive seems better. Usually that comes down to just building something and looking up whichever details I get stuck on.