[aristofun]

Sorry, there is no way to be good at something without doing it.

After some initial reading try to get your hands dirty with any large scale application you can get access to.

[Jensson]

But there are many ways to fail at getting good at something while doing it a lot.

[aristofun]

Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment

[afarrell]

Good judgement comes from a mix of positive and negative experiences while paying attention to the right things.

[aristofun]

Without experience you simply cannot know right from wrong

[afarrell]

Incorrect.

I learned that it was wrong to casually point a firearm at someone before I had the experience of firing a gun. I also first learned to direct my visual focus to the front sights. Knowing that rule enabled me to then gain more nuanced skill and helped me avoid building bad habits.

After 8 years in the software industry, I dearly wish that I’d been able to find such guidance about software estimation when I was starting out. At this point, I’m going to need some sort of therapy to be able to give software estimates.

[aristofun]

First, you didn’t actually learned those things, you trusted them. Second, im not speaking about trivial common knowledge. There’s obviously always something useful to learn from theory in any area.

But its subtle things that make all the difference between average and really good in something, these ones you can’t really learn without gettyhands dirty and making own mistakes. Even though often it seems different looking backwards, but it’s nothing more than a curse if knowledge.