Practice often... and know your language well. There is a huge difference between knowing and KNOWING. Knowing your tools well enough lets you focus on the pro

Practice often... and know your language well. There is a huge difference between knowing and KNOWING. Knowing your tools well enough lets you focus on the problem rather than searching how to hacking your way through. Don't be a copy paste programmer. Don't be mislead by fast typers either. Fast turnaround is good, but stable code is better. What's the point of finishing in 1 day instead of 2 if you'll be debugging for a week afterwards? With enough practice you'll be able to get the stable code out in the same time as the fast typer. Some book recommendations: -Code Complete 2. -Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. -Clean Code. -Head first design patterns.