Thinking like a computer scientist.

I think we can all agree that programming is easy. Thinking like a computer scientist on the other hand is extremely difficult.

How long would you say it takes someone to get up to a proficient level? Should they keep challenging themselves to write small scripts to learn something new every time?

I find it quite difficult to come up with things to program, and when I do they're too ambitious and I find I don't have the skill to do it, mostly because I wouldn't know how to break it up into smaller, feasible chunks.

Do you ever have this problem? If yes, then how did you overcome it?

>>2
I don't know who the second CLer is, but I never ever spammed /prog/. The only thing I do is either answer question when they're not boring or post code.