OK, apologies for making such a long post. Here is my point (which has turned out to be pretty long too): 1) I have realized that systematically learning progr

OK, apologies for making such a long post. Here is my point (which has turned out to be pretty long too): 1) I have realized that systematically learning programming concepts, models and algorithms first, and how to apply them through programming techniques is much more important than just keeping on learning new languages and frameworks. For this, I am finding "Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming" invaluable; it covers an amazing amount of ground, and has an excellent bibliography to know where to learn more of a particular aspect. It is is a successor of SICP, which is very good too, and, I suspect as a tribute, is the first reference in CTM. 2) Learn how to do lightweight design upfront based only on the problem/requirement independently from language; the book above helps enormously, but I also really like the approach in the 2008 version of the MIT course 6.005 (later versions are watered down IMHO) [1]. It reinforces this design approach, and has, AFAIK, the best approach to using Design Patterns properly and systematically: to bridge the gap between design and code, which this way just flows almost automatically from the design. It may not be immediately obvious, but this course has a lot in common with SICP. For this reason I am highly sceptical of TDD, although I love to write the tests first and incrementally. 3) Once you know 1), many aspects of learning a new language and using it well are a piece of cake, because what you learned in 1) transcends any particular language and is timeless; I am now starting to enjoy mapping what I learned in 1) to different languages. 4) if you have to or want to use a language that is lacking direct support for anything in 1), if the language's computing model allows it (and many do, it is amazing how adding just one little concept to a language opens a whole range of possibilities but also problems, i.e. destructive assignment, threads, exceptions, triggers, ports, dataflow variables, etc), you can just build an abstraction or find a mature library that implements it. It is equally amazing how much you can still accomplish even if you remove one of the those concepts from a language, like destructive assignment, if you know the right techniques. It may not be as efficient and convenient as a built in abstraction, but will very likely still be much better than the alternative of implementing a design that is not the right one for the problem/requirement. 5) there is no need at all to be intimidated by a language or system with an enormous amount of features/libraries. Most of the time you only need to select a subset of the language to accomplish your goal efficiently. From 1) you will learn exactly how to do this and exactly why it is crazy to try to use the full power of a language; you should actually do the exact opposite, use as few concepts of a language as you can get away with while still writing a program that has a good balance of all required good properties. [1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-005-elements-of-software-construction-fall-2008/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-compu...