In this new post to his KillerPHP blog Stefan Mischook takes a quick look at professional programming and what separates professional programmers out from the rest.

I recently got an email question put to me by someone wanting to know what makes a professional programmer. [...] A good programmer is able to put out clean code that works and is easy to update. Simplicity is a sign of professionalism in any profession or discipline.

He goes on to talk about some of the things a programmer should learn to help them move towards that "professional" status including object oriented programming, design patterns, MVC frameworks and getting in "under the hood".