That’s not a problem. That’s certainly how I learned development back in the day, only back then there were no videos, and precious few books! Today you can get the source code for darktable, and read the docs and watch videos, and if that’s not clear you can post a question here, or reddit, or the mailing list (too many places! maybe just stick with this forum!) and the developers/experienced users help. As long as you have time, it’s all good!
Regarding your question, one of the developers wrote this:
You don’t have to worry about the order: