Taken from a blog post by Steve Yegge about computer programming and the book "Escher, Godel and Bach":

function get_smarter():

  1. Am I smart enough yet? (default answer: of course not!)
  2. If yes, go make a grillion dollars, or go fishing, or something. (Note: this statement is unreachable).
  3. Otherwise:
     1. Do various important things, until I have some free time.
     2. Pick a book from my book list and read it.
     3. If I've read it already, check all the references at the end, and add the ones that look good to my book list.
     4. get_smarter()

If your book list is empty, add Gödel, Escher, Bach to it before calling the function for the first time.