Ask HN: How to know how good at coding you are?

I'm a student in college, and I use to think that I was fairly good at coding. But lately, I'm not sure.

I was wondering if there are particularly principles of a good coder or some kind of pattern. I find myself coding well and quick when I'm interested and motivated, but other times I'm slow and just procrastinating.

Start contributing to an open source project.

In doubt, assume you are bad. You will fare better with that.

I guess I have to elaborate on that a bit :)

At first, if you assume you are bad at programming, you will begin to look for reasons why you are bad. You will find them and then you can remove them, if necessary. This will make you better.

Second, assuming you are bad removes a lot of pressure. You don't need to be good, and it is not bad to do an occasional mistake, because you are bad. Surprise, Surprise, bad programmers make mistakes.

Third, this assumption creates a good attitude. You won't think that that particular habit of someone else is stupid, because it is different and you are good, so it must be bad. No. You are bad. Maybe that little attitude of the other person can make you a little bit better, or rather, less bad than you are right now. Let's examine that!

And once you are firmly confirmed about how bad you are, you are a good programmer at the same time, for the reasons above (and you will have found a paradoxon. yay).

Exercises in books will often have an amount of time that the problem should take you to solve listed with the problem. Work every problem while timing yourself. See if you are below average or above average after six months and a couple of books that are interesting to you.