Some context: Here Cal Newport is extending some of the ideas presented in his latest book "So Good They Can't Ignore You". In the book he says (among other th

Some context: Here Cal Newport is extending some of the ideas presented in his latest book "So Good They Can't Ignore You". In the book he says (among other things) that how you become 'so good that...' etc is by what he calls 'deliberate practice' - which in turn has two components - (1) 'deep work', the doing of which actively stretches you while you are doing it (in term of guitar playing, this would be acquiring new rhythmic abilities, vs just playing/performing songs you already know). The 'practice' in deliberate practice should maximise 'deep work' (as per Newport) (2) fast feedback loops - either by other (and ideally better than you) people, or built in (if you play a note wrong, you know instantly) This blog entry and its neighbors seem to explore how he applies this philosophy to his chosen activity (research in CS). It is not entirely clear how to apply it to programming.