One of the best quotes I've heard about programming was from an old C++ developer I knew- "the best way to learn how to program is to start 10 years ago" The f

One of the best quotes I've heard about programming was from an old C++ developer I knew- "the best way to learn how to program is to start 10 years ago" The fact you are asking this question is a great sign. This is a key skill that is overlooked in technical hiring and by many development blogs trying to qualify what makes a "good" programmer. Problem abstraction is a huge part of software development. I work in enterprise development around a very specific niche of oil and gas. (ETRM) the "programming" I do amounts to little more than reading and writing to a database. The tricky part is modeling a business process and breaking it down into manageable units of work. For what I (and probably most developers) do, language is just syntax to know and interchangeable. In my experience, programming is a series of learning curves and plateaus. A lot of what I know just comes from experience. The best way to learn is to program. You will eventually see patterns in the types of problems you see and know the general approach to solving it even if you don't have the exact answer.