[readonthegoapp]

i was never a very good programmer, but i did have a decent understanding of some of the at-the-time favored design patterns (singletons, factories, facades, etc.) and how they were implemented in Java (potentially called 'idioms' -- that is, how to construct a design pattern in a specific language).

and i feel like you could not really understand one without the other.

i also feel it's a good idea to get really good at at least one language and its toolchain/ecosystem as opposed to trying to learn a little bit of every language/ecosystem. b/c being half-assed at everything is just not very useful -- being really good at one language can boost your productivity 10 or 100x from where you are as a beginner.

so part of that would be to continue increasing your expertise in whatever language(s) you happen to be using - b/c it's easy to get lazy - and you'll pay the price in productivity - if you care about that kind of thing, and presumably you do.

i suspect doing open source stuff is great for learning, and great for future job prospects, but no practical experience there. i've often built side projects and they've helped me land gigs, especially if i didn't come off as an entrepreneur-type.

one piece of advice i heard from an unrelated field (sort of) -- is to pick a problem that interests you, then try to solve it.