It really helps to have someone show you the proper way to do things. I've been hacking on rails for a while but only after I joined a company where they had g

It really helps to have someone show you the proper way to do things. I've been hacking on rails for a while but only after I joined a company where they had guys with 4 years of professional rails experience did I come to know of all my bad habits and also learned how to do things in a neater faster way. Basically being around people who are good at what they do will make you good at that skill. The book "The Talent Code" explains this in detail. Read this book - it'll significantly help you understand what you need to do get good at a skill fast. Venkatesh Rao wrote a blog post on this as well which is a very worthy read. He called it "The Crucible Effect". http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/07/21/the-crucible-effect-and-the-scarcity-of-collective-attention/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/07/21/the-crucible-effect-and... And this goes for any skill from windsurfing, soccer to coding to running a startup.