[davidthefat]

Just remember, to become a good programmer, you need years of practice. It is just like any sport, skill, activity. Once you start to get the hang of programming, there will be more curve balls thrown at you and you will need to learn how to adapt. While I do agree on not focusing on C++ as in the syntax, but I say focus on C++. It is not all black and white as you may think; syntax goes hand an hand with the whole "programming" part of it. What I mean by that is that you may have all the pseudo code on paper, but you might not be able to translate that into code without knowing a lot of syntax. It is hard to explain what I mean. If you did not know what static functions are, you might have had to change up the class hierarchy to accommodate what you wanted to do. Learn what is inside your tool box; you do not want to be using a hack saw to cut down a tree while a chainsaw is in your toolbox.

By all means, go learn algorithms, but learn how to think. Thinking is the most important aspect of coding. Always get in the habit of pseudo coding before touching the keyboard. If you are stuck, just sleep on it. Chances are, if you are tired, you end up doing stupid stuff. Like last night, I was writing a sorting algorithm late at night, but I I ended up with this 200 line class. It was not pretty, but I reduced it down to 40 lines or so.