I'm starting to realize, that if you just know the basics of researching, you can (most of the time) find better free resources, than paid ones, for learning about new things in this field.

the trick is to know which resources are better and which are not :)

@netikras that's very true :) but the more you research, the better you are at knowing ;)

I sit on humble bundle and buy books in bulks. They keep me occupied for while.

The best learning resource is a stupid idea for a game/library/plugin/app, and a working development setup (a browser, a compiler/interpreter toolchain, a package manager, an editor, and coffee/cognac)

Learning a new language for me usually starts with "I want to make a cookie clicker clone" -- "OK, brain, cool idea" -- "But let's write it as an interactive CLI application, using Ascii art and Rust" -- "Ahh fuck you, brain, why do you have to do this to me".

A good sign for books is when you see it quoted a lot in Medium & Dev.to articles.

Or at least cheaper.