It may just be me, but just about every question posed on the C/C++ forum is some variation of this:

"Does <so and so> work?"

What a silly question! Apparently the days where pioneering spirits would actually take the time to compile and run some code to see if it worked, or thought about a problem long enough to come up with at least one viable solution are long gone. One doesn't become proficient with a programming language by being given answers to one's questions. One becomes proficient with a programming language by playing with it.

I learned how to program before the Web was filled with solutions to every problem I could imagine. What did I do? I figured things out on my own. It may seem unthinkable by todays standards that a novice programmer could actually devise a solution without begging for help on a forum or chat room, but that's exactly what I and countless others did.

Innovation is stopped dead in its tracks when nobody cares enough to think about a problem. If umpteen solutions are there for the taking then there will never be new and unique solutions. There are so few people willing to try something new and exciting just to see what will happen. It's incredibly depressing because these are the people that develop algorithms and data structures, operating systems and programming languages, even applications for existing solutions that nobody thought of. Without people like that, nothing new will come about. It will all just be the same old stuff.

Do you have an idea? Great! Go try it out; don't come running to more experienced programmers asking if it's good or not. If it doesn't work then you've learned something new. If it does work then you've created something new and learned in the process. Either way you win, but if you don't try new things out of fear of failure then you'll never become a truly skilled programmer.

Most of the things I know aren't found in any book. They aren't answered on any forums or in any chat rooms. Most of the things I know were gleaned from experimentation and curiosity. I've been told that I'm the smartest programmer ever. Now, even though I disagree thoroughly with that opinion, I wouldn't be a fraction as good as I am without the pioneering spirit.

In the end it's all about attitude. If you don't have the right attitude for programming then you'll never be more than mediocre. The very thought of programming should make your heart beat faster. The existence of a problem should make you pine for a solution, but not just any solution, you should thirst for your own solution. If you don't see code in your sleep, if it doesn't compile when you wake up and try it, if you can't wait to get home and fire up your compiler because you had the coolest idea while you were away, then you aren't hungry enough.

Without the right attitude, novices will never been able to see the joy in developing their own solutions. They will never see the art within the science. They will never realize that programming isn't just a job, or a hobby, or even an art form. They will never see the revelation that programming is actually a state of mind, and to be any good at it you must give in to that state of mind completely.

I'm being overdramatic, you say? Too much philosophy and not enough science, you say? Programming is steeped in technology, but it's not difficult to see that even when technology is the tool, something so saturated with the essence of humanity can't possibly be anything less than a state of being. And that realization is the first step on the path to mastery.