Really it all comes down to reading and practice. Instead of writing your personal duct tape code in ruby why not try it in C? Sure it will be harder at first b

Really it all comes down to reading and practice. Instead of writing your personal duct tape code in ruby why not try it in C? Sure it will be harder at first but it will make you a better programmer all around. Also reading OS code (like plan9/9front, *bsd, or xv6) will help you learn both how it works, but also how to write better. I don't really do programming problems because they don't give me anything useful at the end other than the knowledge. If I want to practice I'm more inclined to try solving a problem I have in a new way.