Ask HN: How do you keep improving?

Simply awesome.

There are couple ways I keep up on things (keeping in mind that there are no absolutes and everyone is different).

First, I identify subjects that are both interesting to me and have traction with the developer community. Forums like this one are generally a good sniff test. I then subscribe to mailing lists that deal with that tech. I clip a lot of articles and code snippets to a datastore (Evernote in my case) where I can peruse my notes later. I install said tech and build little micro apps and generally futz around and have a good time. The key here is to be interested in the tech you are trying to learn. Maybe you are bored with C/C++? Whats the harm in looking at something totally different like Ruby or NodeJS? They might give you ideas or a different way of looking at things. Whatever it is, try to have fun. Learning doesn't have to be all drudgery.

When I want to take a deep dive (usually after a good bit of research mentioned above) I find a job working with the tech in question. Nothing will force me into gaining a deep deep understanding of a technology or concept like getting thrown into the deep end. After a year or two at that job, I emerge a ninja level dev in that area. Not a bad deal if you ask me. If that approach is too extreme maybe you can just set up a side project or contribute to open source? Anything that forces you to sit in a chair and produce functional code in the manner with which you want to learn is going to accelerate your learning in ways you never thought possible. Good luck!!

By familiarizing yourself with a large codebase, you'll start to pick up the patterns in use. Having your code reviewed by project owners is a great way to get others to help you improve.

Some projects and communities are better than others. Some can be hostile or quiet, others can be welcoming and active.

Don't just start by throwing PRs at random projects and hoping someone bites. Managing an open source project is work and initially you want to be causing as little extra work for the maintainers as possible.