Experts at programming? What kind of expert? There are those who excell at the theory of programming, those that excell simply at getting the job done and then there are those really disgusting individuals that seem to have both talents.

The theory is nice because it gives a person a framework within which they can think about programming languages in general. The most enlightening course I took in college was a comparative OS course, but only because I had been working in a real-time system and the course finally gave me the correct language to think about what was happening.

For the most part, I have come by my knowledge the hard way. Write enough code that you then have to maintain 6 months later and you quickly figure out the value of comments and documentation. Spend enough time trying to remember what command line options are available and you learn the value of -h options and Getopt::Long. Re-invent certain wheels enough times and you learn to either make a module or to search CPAN first and steal^wuse somebody else's wheel.

I would recommend, for what terribly little my opinion is worth, picking up the book on programming theory and language design. I would recommend learning several different programming languages. Both will allow you to approach a problem, determine the best tool and use it effectively. Which, in my mind, is what really defines an expert programmer.

mikfire