Ask HN: Learning CS theory from preprints

A standard CS undergraduate curriculum teaches core subjects like computer architecture and networking. With the bevy of freely available CS preprints on such topics on sites like arXiv.org would it be possible for a highly motivated individual to learn the theory just from preprints? I’m wondering the same for the field of math, economics, or any other technical field. I haven’t read that many papers but my intuition is that the background section often attempts (sometimes effectively, othertimes not so much) provide the context and vocabulary needed to understand the core theoritical aspects of the paper.

As an example to flesh out my question, for say the topic computer architecture - can we stitch together enough preprints (given the corpus of whats available on arXiv - not sure if they have all the important CS papers) so that if they go through them they could learn everything theoritical that is learned in an undergraduate or graduate computer architecture course.