That makes sense to me.
 
For myself, I'd opine that learning to code with some particular syntax that needs to be interpreted by some other application and learning to twist knobs with an immediate visceral feedback seems to require different modes of attention. 
 
all the best,
mike

I can only give you some insight into how I got into synthesisers and how I learned. Maybe you can glean something from it and perhaps modernise the concept too. I have got some ideas on that.
 
I started by reading a great series of books by Roland but they are old and came out in the late 70's. It was called 'The Synthesiser' and featured four books.
 
A Foundation for Electronic Music
Practical Synthesis for Electronic Music / Parts I and II
Multichannel Recording for Electronic Music.
 
If you ever see this it is well worth grabbing and reading. BTW the book you are referring to would be a good replacement for these series of books. I think the Roland books are written in the right order of learning though. You may still need to research what to learn first etc..Sometimes these books don't give you that, they just dive in without a plan to a certain extent.
 
I fiddled with the actual instruments at the time. I had all the analog gear then. But a good straight ahead VST will also do the job.
 
Basic concepts:
 
The basic concept of Oscillator > Filter > Envelope Generator applies to many forms of synthesis and is still very current.
You can start by listening to one oscillator only and hearing how the different waveforms sound from each other. Noise included. Samplers just replace the oscillator with a digital recording playback device instead.
 
Filters shape the tone. HP and LPF.  Resonance can be added around the cutoff frequencies etc. They shape the tone of the sound
 
ADSR generators shape the sound volume wise over time. When you combine all these three things you have a lot of control over sound shaping and manipulation.
 
Filters can have their own ADSR generator which opens and closes the filters over time too. LFO's can be used to modulate a range of parameters.
 
This basic synthesis form should be well grasped before moving into things like FM and Additive. I learned the basic analog synth form first and it has helped me translate onto almost anything else after.
 
Computer Music put out a mag called 'Synths' The Ultimate Guide. Well worth getting. Tons of stuff in there. Explanations, tutorials, free VST's/VST's used in the tutorials etc.. and more.
 
Groove 3 make a great video on general synthesis as well here:
 
http://www.groove3.com/str/synths-explained.html
 
Very little money for huge amounts of info in return. It is good to learn these things in some sort of order and graduate up in terms of making patches. Simple single osc things at the start to massive lush stereo pads etc...
 
There are plenty of free VST's out there you can learn and practice on eg Synth1 for example. I would learn on something a little simpler before jumping into something like Rapture which has lots of other stuff going on too like wave sequencing and making rhythms and loops.

I started out on an EMS Synthi A. (suitcase model) It was a very good grounding.  You could not get a single sound out of it until you had learnt the basics of what each module did and the routing via the matrix peg board. Of course it starts with the patch book but starts to get more fun when you play with unconventional routings, like putting the reverb on an oscillator to thicken it up before it goes to the filter and VCA or using noise as a modulation source. You could even do some very rudimentary FM, which meant when I eventually got a Yamaha 4 op FM synth I had some idea how the tone could be shaped.
 
I recall talking about how it would be good if we could some how warp the oscillator waveforms, when I finally got Z3ta - there was the feature I had dreamed of around 35 years previously.
 
 

Hi,
 
OK ...
 
Book on the way!
 
Craig, I needed you more for hooking things up and getting an idea of how to be able to add things on top of things ... which you are adept at.
 
No worries. Not asking anymore! But I will have fun joking over it!