I think you can divide programming up into a few areas. 1. Mechanics, how well can you navigate and type using the tools you have available. To practice this a

I think you can divide programming up into a few areas. 1. Mechanics, how well can you navigate and type using the tools you have available. To practice this an easy thing to do is formatting your code without any automatic formatting. In vim for example, this helps you learn the commands. 2. Reasoning/problem solving. This one is harder to practice and really requires experience. Always have a project and spend time trying different solutions. A nice characteristic of software is you can usually just undo if something was wrong, so don't be afraid to experiment. 3. Research- it's safe to assume someone else already solved a problem. Use google to find their solution and read how they solved the problem. Never be afraid to open up someone else's code.