Programming/Software/Experimen... skills..?

I am somewhat frustrated with myself. My programming practices, software development practices suck. I am working on a project on Java..and I run experiments on linux server using scripts etc..Would someone know of any book to help picking good practices in s/w development, programming and experiments desiogning and running (and writing shell scrfipts) in general

Thanks

First forget about what scripting language or programming language you are using and concentrate on the discipline of programming. Learn to break a problem or process down into discrete simple components and then link them together to create a more complex structure. I put a link to Software Development Magazine. In over 35 years on software development I have seen a lot of different techniques and people touting this or that sofware development technique or language so consider takeing a few software development classes at a local University or if you can find a good University book store look there for some ideas. In the end it may depend on what standard your company or customer uses and to some extent your personal style.
One thing, learn to flowchart, it forces you to structure your thought processes and break problems and processes down into logical steps with decision points and forces you to consider all available options before starting to code.
Remember that if you do the upfront analysis the coding is only about 10 percent of a project.