By eating the brains of programmers who are better than you.

Lots of good advice here. I’ll add a bit more that is non-technical. Get and study the book “Symbolic Logic” by Irving M. Copi. It’ll help you to think more critically and expose you to different logic patterns. More philosophical than technical but I see it as being like math for words. As with everything, you get better over time if you keep at it.

Self taught Python (and using linux OS) over the last 15 years ; the only ways I found real progress in my code/coding were while doing the following : 1/ (at start): following strictly a “school manual” with lessons and ALL exercices. It was Python 2.3 I think, a manual (in French) by Swinnen. To be honest I stopped before reaching the GUI and network programming, and guess at what I suck today in Python programming … 2/ projects, personal projects. I did pro (paid) projects on the side, but with the impetuous to deliver results to be paid, I can not progress. On personal projects I can take the time to try stuff, to rewrite functions or programs, and to “improve” existing code with new/better coding constructs.

So here I am with a rather random level of Python programming proficiency, currently being average at most but enough proficient to have workable programs.

Generally I start with an end goal, and break it down into logical pieces. For instance I recently wanted to make a custom soundboard for discord. First thing I needed to figure out was how to play sounds. Next was playing those sounds to a specific sound device so that it can be routed into the audio input for discord. Then I needed to figure out how to play the same sound at the same time through the audio output. Then I needed a form to interact with so I could click a button to play a sound. Then I needed to be able to load a config file so that I could update that form when I wanted to add or delete sounds. Then I needed a way to choose files to add to the sound board. And conversely a context menu so I could right click a button to remove it. Then I needed to figure out how to save and load this config file from the filesystem. Then I needed to be able to search for and update the form so I could now quickly find sounds if the list got too long. And then once I had all that working, figure out how to play the same sound multiple times before it finished resulting in a multi threaded soundboard that can interact with any sound device on the machine and saves and loads sound lists all in Python.

Identify a problem that you can solve using code. Use ai to help with syntax and code structure. Chip away at the problem a little bit each day.

Find an open source project you love an contribute to it.

I would say:

1. Just practice, do projects. Also if you can work on projects with other people because you’ll read a lot of bad code and learn how not to do things (hopefully).

2. Learn lots of programming languages. They often have different and interesting ways of doing things that can teach you lessons that you can bring to any language. For example Haskell will teach you the benefit of keeping functions pure (and also the costs!).

If you only know Python I would recommend:

1. Learn Python with type hints. Run Pyright (don’t use mypy; it sucks) on your project and get it to pass.

2. Go is probably a sensible next step. Very quick to learn but you’ll start to learn about proper static typing, multithreading, build tools (Go has the best tooling too so unfortunately it’s all downhill from here…), and you can easily build native executables that aren’t dog slow.

3. C++ or Rust. Big step up but these languages (especially C++) will teach you about how computers actually work. Pointers, memory layouts, segfaults (in C++). They also let you write what we’re now calling “foundational software” (formerly “systems software” but that was too vague a term).

4. Optionally, if you want to go a bit niche, one of the functional programming languages like Haskell or OCaml. I’d probably say OCaml because it’s way easier (it doesn’t force everything to be pure). I don’t really like OCaml so I wouldn’t spend too much time on this but it has lots of interesting ideas.

5. Final boss is probably a dependently typed language like Lean or Idris. Pretty hardcore and not really of much practical use it you aren’t writing software that Must Not Fail Ever. You’ll learn loads about type systems though.

Also read programming articles on Hacker News.

There is a lot here with varying degrees of helpfulness. I’ll add one thing. Many have commented essentially “build stuff”, and that is solid truth. That’s how you get better. But just like the whole perfect practice makes perfect, there is one fundamental detail that must be included. Build systems that you understand deeply. Not the code; that you are learning. But it is best to build things where you understand the outcome behavior of the system.

For example, if you don’t really understand what graphics rasterization is, building a raster program, even with a good guide, isn’t going to help as much as you might think. Though it will help you understand graphics, so go nuts. But if you really understand how baseball stats are calculated, do something with that. It will be much more gratifying and the code will be the part you’re learning, not the system it is implementing.

Code reviews. if you have no one who can review your code for you get an AI to do it

Be result-focused. You’re trying to achieve x. Look at however many tutorials you need to achieve x. Now x is part of your repertoire. Then repeat, with a new x.

Later, you’ll think “I need to do y. I’ve done it before. I’ll just copy that syntax, with new variable names etc” and boom, you’re good at programming.

Working with/on things I found interesting helped a lot. I.e. lots of small projects/scripts, using different frameworks/libraries/languages that looked interesting. Experimenting and exploring different ways things could be done. Programming is one of those “10,000 hours” things; you need to be interested in what you’re doing to do something like that for so long. Computer Science coursework helped a lot too, especially the courses heavy on algorithms, data structures, big-o, proofs, etc.

In my CS coursework, we were exposed to many different languages and programming paradigms at the very beginning. It’s fine to experiment and start learning multiple languages at once (preferably, all being quite different, such as a pure functional language, procedural language, object-oriented, declarative logic, etc).

Nice try GPT-6

You get better at programming by programming.

The things you mentioned are very good, but what I’m missing is feedback and a good foundation.

Feedback should come from other developers - ideally experienced, but a good dialogue between beginners can also teach both sides a lot. For me this came only after I started working, through code reviews. But you could also try contributing to open source, or putting your own code online. Although I fear you won’t get much feedback.

A good foundation is about software and hardware designs. Without this you will inevitably come to a point where you made a fundamental mistake in design.

For hardware design I recommend YouTube. Many channels talk about low level hardware. You don’t need to become an expert, just get a high level understanding.

For software design, check out the gang of four’s Design Patterns. It is a seminal work. You don’t need to read it all but be aware of the patterns, and study a few like factories and facade in detail.

Write code, get feedback, write more (better) code, get more feedback and repeat.

Just hacking your own stuff 10 hours a day isn’t making you better if you’re just doing what you have already done or doing things the same way you’ve done them before.