I asked this question on StackOverflow but it got shot down fairly quickly. It was suggested that I ask it here, so I've copied it from there. Hope that's ok:

The question:

I think that the 'great' programmers become so mostly from being exposed to and interested in programming from early ages, as well as huge amounts of dedication.

Unfortunately I only discovered programming at a later age, and I sometimes feel frustrated with the difficulties I experience in trying to grok some of the more fundamental concepts the 'greats' seem to take for granted..

So my question is in relationt to that, if a 'great' programmer (i.e. top 10%) had to distill his or her knowledge into a few recommendations / books / concepts / suggestions / lessons, what would they be? What does a programmer who's willing to learn need to do to get on the right track towards becoming great? And to be more specific, I don't mean 'what does that person need to do', because the answer is almost invariably, 'practice!'. What I mean is, what does the programmer need to know?