I used to be pretty bad too... I think it took me about 5 years to get to decent... and probably 5 more to get to damn good. A lot of software is about having t

I used to be pretty bad too... I think it took me about 5 years to get to decent... and probably 5 more to get to damn good. A lot of software is about having the right mental models... for me the book that helped was Steven's Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment... after that book I knew a LOT more about OS's and all my mental models were improved greatly. also learn to recognize what parts you don't know and figure those parts out with tiny test programs... THEN code your solutions.