Mastering a programming language by not programming?

Question

The computer scientist Peter Norvig argued in his essay Teach Yourself To Program in 10 Years that you need about 10,000 hours of practice.

But Jeff Atwood argued in his post How To Become a Better Programmer by Not Programming that he believes the only way to become a better programmer is by not programming.

These articles are in opposition. Is there a scientific evidence to prove the Jeff Atwood approach?

Answer 1

You're missing the point.

Jeff Atwood is saying that being an excellent programmer requires more than just coding skills. It also requires being a good designer, working well with other people, and in general becoming a better thinker and problem solver.

The greatest missing skill is somebody who's both good at understanding the engineering and who has good relationships with the hard-core engineers, and bridges that to working with the customers.

-- Bill Gates

Peter Norvig's point is that you can't just pick up a copy of "Become a Master Programmer in 24 Hours" and expect that to work. But that's exactly how many folks who ask questions at Stack Overflow seem to approach programming. They think they can load up Eclipse, learn a few keywords, and write the next Angry Birds. It takes a little more than that.

Answer 2

The "Not Programming" part should come after a good deal of programming practice.

the only way to become a better programmer is by not programming

You have to be a programmer first before you can become a better one. The first programming language learning barrier will take up a great deal of effort alone and the problem-solving part will be trivial compared to problems you will have to face later on.

UPDATE:

_{As suggested in the comments, you can still benefit from "not programming aka: (thinking)" when first starting out as a programmer but I would not step away from the keyboard just because someone says I should be doing that to get better, rather you should do it because you know you need to think about it more.}