I think the more important thing is that some people build up confidence upfront by reading up on theory, and embarking on a problem next; and others want to try building things and only once they hit the wall, figure out the background. And there's all sorts of middle ground. And as we develop, we move left and right on that continuum (and it also depends on the topic).

So I don't even think what the article claims is universally true: I've seen people who simply get frustrated if you don't give them enough time to read up on a bunch of (to you) irrelevant documentation, and struggle to get anything done otherwise.

The real take away for me is that people learn and synthesise knowledge in a myriad of ways, and we should strive to figure out which person prefers which way, and failing that, offer all of these ways so we can observe and learn.