When I am in the learning stage of a framework or language, I take a bottom-up approach to the program or system I am trying to build. I focus on the smaller aspects first and then move to larger architectural stuff once I understand it better. Google is my main tool, every single problem I encounter I google first before trying to invent a solution. This allows me to get a broad overview of what is available before moving into the territory where I need to create more heavily.

For instance once I was building a recipe search engine on a new platform in python, my process went like this:

1) Make 1 table in the database, for recipes, with the constraints that I needed. (Learned Model Representation)

2) Build a lame page which would pull a single recipe and show it. (Learned Basic View and Controller)

3) Build a page where I can type in a query and get some recipes back. (Learned how forms are handled)

4) Added way more DB Tables to cover most of the data schema. (Learned more advanced DB operations)

5) Built better looking Web pages which would be more responsive. (Caching, Static file handling, more advanced controllers)

6) Built actual search code

Although this is a specific example, I find using a method such as this, where I start with very basic problems of the larger picture, allows me to get moving very quickly. Furthermore, as I start knocking off the easier stuff I feel more confident and I learn the best places to find answers for my questions for that framework.