But here’s the rub. Programming, like writing, painting, and music, is chiefly a creative endeavor not a technical one. Practice with any technology or language is useful as a means of learning tools and techniques, but it will not make you a substantially better programmer. It will just make you more efficient with your tools. What makes you a better programmer is learning how to think about problems, since you are ultimately encoding your own thought process into a series of instructions the computer will follow in an attempt to solve problems. And learning to think properly–about abstractions, about composition, about information, about thinking itself–can come from many sources other than programming. Paul Graham observed this in his amazing essay Hackers and Painters:
I’ve found that the best sources of ideas are not the other fields that have the word “computer” in their names, but the other fields inhabited by makers. Painting has been a much richer source of ideas than the theory of computation.
Branching out into other fields, having hobbies other than programming can be a tremendous benefit to your day job. You don’t need to burn a bazillion hours writing code. Burn that time writing, or reading, or arguing with someone over coffee (or your favorite scotch!). Burn that time running, or lifting, or both. Physical activity pumps oxygen to the brain, nurturing that wonderful organ that is you. I started running 3 years ago. Actually getting fresh air and sunlight makes me a healthier person, and also gives me time to bounce around ideas in my head while I’m passing the miles to dropped beats and house vocals.
