[penpapersw]

That's my same experience with programming. That's kind of what I was getting at in this article actually: that you get better by doing your best and making mistakes. Nothing beats hard-earned experience.

[taeric]

Completely agreed. It is good to learn from the mistakes of others, though.

To that end, it is good to have exposure to a lot of things that have failed. Seeing how they succeeded isn't as instructive, interestingly.