In fact, a few months spent learning best-practices for programming in general (including version control, proper testing, automated deployment, isolated environments, etc.) will pay dividends later. Learn these things now (and apply them even where they aren't necessary, in order to build experience and comfort level) and within a year or two I can practically guarantee you'll be better than at least 90% of working programmers.
There are so many life-altering tools available for developers now; far more than were available when I started programming. Unfortunately, the longer you build up bad (or simply inferior-to-current) programming practices, the harder it is to apply new, better techniques. Integrate them into your life now and you'll have a sturdy, solid foundation to build on.
I'd go so far as to say that every developer should know everything on this page, or at least some substitute (e.g. mercurial instead of svn, ruby or c instead of python).
There are so many life-altering tools available for developers now; far more than were available when I started programming. Unfortunately, the longer you build up bad (or simply inferior-to-current) programming practices, the harder it is to apply new, better techniques. Integrate them into your life now and you'll have a sturdy, solid foundation to build on.