There is an old joke about a man who is lost in New York City. He stops someone and asks, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”. The other guy answers, “Practice, practice, practice!”
We all want to improve our skills, and we know that, to get better requires practice. Muhammad Ali famously said, “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road; long before I dance under those lights.” In other words, the time spent in practice determines the quality of your performance.
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There are many skills necessary to be a successful software developer: language skills, mathematics, problem analysis, procedural thinking, patience, among many others. And for an area of specialization there are specific technologies to learn: Javascript, Hibernate, EE4J, etc.
A few weeks ago 
Why is it you always find something you’ve lost in the last place you look? Because you don’t need to look for it any more! You already found it! Why would someone continue to seach for something they have already found?
A common concern for developers who want to implement better software development disciplines in their teams is how to convince management to go along with these great ideas. How do we convince management to let us take time to refactor the code? Or practice TDD? Or adopt agile disciplines?