I hate to be one of those guys ("well actually, your question is wrong, because ...") but I spent a lot of time trying to find "C++ pushups" before deciding tha

I hate to be one of those guys ("well actually, your question is wrong, because ...") but I spent a lot of time trying to find "C++ pushups" before deciding that I may as well work on interesting projects and try to consciously improve my C++ while doing them. I mean, sure, you can do Project Euler (or many other things), but you can also work on cool projects. I'm writing a superoptimizer (and I have C++ coding stuff at work). For both, I make a conscious effort to try to figure out better ways of doing that stuff (rather than just banging out ancient idiomatic C++ that isn't modern or good) - it's easy to slip into "doing things a dumb but quick way" that doesn't teach you much about the language or coding. I have a similar attitude to push-ups, honestly. I'd rather bench press once a week and do a sport than be constantly banging out push-ups. In both things, you quickly get to the point where you're hitting diminishing returns from the "push-up" type of operation, unless your goal is "to be the best at exercising". If we're comparing someone who couldn't complete 10 pushups or do a basic Project Euler problem with someone who can, I'd say "sure, that first person needs pushups (or programming equivalent)". I'm not sure once you're well beyond that point whether it makes sense to do that many more "pushups", unless you are going to a push-up competition in a month's time.