Nancy

>I learned them thru texts in school

You will have no-doubt been started off on the right foot if you had the chance to study this in school.

I think it really depends when you started learning to programme, as a recent learner I've seen a lot of programmers who can just program (ie know what commands to give a language), then there are ones who can program and explain the logic behind it.

When I agreed to become a programmer, I was sent on a course to learn a language, not a programming course or a beginners programming course, so I was severely dropped in the deep end, the answer to your original question.

In my present job, I am told to write something, I'm not given any time to plan/research the development of the product, I work in a world of politics, not IT.

Kev