Practicing Programming (Steve Yegge)

I enjoyed the article but I kept waiting for him to get to the part where you really practice. I was disappointed right at the beginning that he combined study and practice into one concept called practice and then pretty much all of his drills were about studying. The truth is I think most programmers, especially good ones, are self-made, which implies also that they most certainly know how to step outside of their comfort zone and study- sometimes compulsively.

On the other hand, you really don't see a lot of programmers who practice (the real definition, not Steve's)- and I was excited that he was going to write about something I've been thinking a lot about but he never did.

Here's a real example of programming practice- establish a baseline and then repeat the coding exercise from scratch until you feel like you could code it with your eyes closed. Like that FizzBuzz program from the post a few days back that a bunch of us spontaneously coded- erase what you did and code it again. Figure out how to write it in lisp, then erase your code, time yourself, code it again.

If it sounds silly, actually try it- you really do gain something. Time yourself going through the vim tutorial (if you're not already a master)- do every single example 2x- and try to beat your time later. That's real practice, rarely practiced.