Sophocles: One learns by doing the thing

I was reading Dr. Dobbs last night, and they referenced this story about how quantity ends up producing quality, at least when it comes to humans creating things.

The lesson goes like this: A ceramics teacher divides a class into two teams, then tells one team they'll be graded by sheer quantity, while the other side has to produce one great pot. In the end the Quantity Team delivers all the best quality pots.

I've found this to be true with new programmers. All newbies want to learn about things like design patterns, but what they really need to do is just sit down and write a lot of code.

This reminds me of the quote, "One learns by doing the thing." I don't know for sure who said that — possibly Sophocles — but I remember reading it in a Thermodynamics book in college, and I've never forgotten it.