I hope you are monitoring your post asymeric because I would honestly appreciate an answer to a question I have:
It seems like jump into coding immediately interactive tutorials are all the rage. But I have always learned more effectively by reading a high-level, conceptual/philosophical overview of how and why something works the way it does. From there it's much easier for me to work through examples. "Oh I get why this is that way". "Oh yeah that makes sense ..."
I'm left-handed so perhaps this is just a left vs. right brain discussion. Left handers are minorities but I really think its very important to understand how/why something works from a high-level.
I like to get into the coding straight away. If what's happening is not immediately obvious to me, I'll start reading around the area I don't understand until I do understand it. Once I've tried a few set examples out, then I'll start putting my own code together. Inevitably, I'll hit a wall, and search around for an example that solves what I'm having a problem with.
And at some point, I'll start reading the high-level, conceptual/philosophical overview. And because I've now got some experience about some of the areas within the code, how everything ties together starts to make some sense.
If I had to read the high-level overview first, then I may never find the time to start coding in it!
I have read Backbone.js source code, I have tried my hand at it, I have experience with WPF/Silverlight databinding (very close to what Knockout.js does) so I got the theory fairly easily.
My blocker was more seeing it in action to put all the pieces together.
Backbone lacks good documentation. I tried to implement it but I thought it was overkill for what I was trying to do. Knockout.js feels like it is doing most of the plumbing for me.
http://learn.knockoutjs.com/