What is the single most effective thing you did to improve your programming skills?

Posted by Oded on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Oded
Published on 2008-09-16T20:07:25Z Indexed on 2010/04/10 3:53 UTC
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Filed under:

subjective

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language-agnostic

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self-improvement

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skills

Looking back at my career and life as a programmer, there were plenty of different ways I improved my programming skills - reading code, writing code, reading books, listening to podcasts, watching screencasts and more.

My question is: What is the most effective thing you have done that improved your programming skills? What would you recommend to others that want to improve?

I do expect varied answers here and no single "one size fits all" answer - I would like to know what worked for different people.

Edit: Wow - what great answers! Keep 'em coming people!!!

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