I begun learning programming a few years ago, and it feels like I barely progressed. I know the basics and a bit of advanced python(I have learnt to use a few libraries), html and css plus a tiny bit of c++, but not much outside of those. I enjoy programming and solving problems using code, and it’s an enjoyable hobby of mine. But I feel like all I do is extremely basic and I want to advance but it feels overwhelming seeing the countless of things I could learn.
I wanna know what are ways I can actually apply the things I have learnt/will learn on somewhat worthwhile things, because the main problem right now is that I don’t really have anything to do with the things I’ve learnt other than silly projects that don’t really last more than a day and aren’t that complex. I also want to advance my knowledge as previously stated since I feel like I know too little for the amount of time I’ve been learning to program.
For context I’m still in school but not too far off from higher ed, and I have a decent amount of free time on most days(~2-4 hrs).
Thanks if you reply
If you want that sweet dopamine hit of solving problem with out the overhead of doing a project just try leet code. Like that Chinese ping pong player. Nothing wrong with that if you are not gonna pursue it as a job. Ps. You can use different language then you are familiar with like Haskell or ocamel. It can really help you think differently and look problems in new light.
You need to think of things you might want to build. Try building software that nobody ever has, try fixing issues in current software using git. You can find lots of python program in GitHub, waiting for contributions. That’s how I learnt. If you want to learn and use C++, try building software that interacts with the real world with Arduino, try contributing to the Linux kernel or try making simple games using C++ in Godot.
I did actually make a game in godot but it was mostly based on a tutorial and little of my own inpuy
Then use what you learnt from that tutorial and make something similar or entirely new.
As others have said, keep finding and building projects for yourself. Maybe get this book if you don’t have ideas of things you can build: Exercises for Programmers: 57 Challenges to Develop Your Coding Skills
Its a tough problem. You have to find something that you want to exist; like an app or a website or a game. For example, try making a GUI for managing SSH keys. You know, like the ones github makes you create in order to clone and push to a repo. Make a visual representation of those keys (stored in the .ssh folder), and tools to add/delete them.
Along the way you’ll find tons of missing things, tools that should exist but don’t. Those are the “real” projects that will really expand your capabilities as a developer.
For example, I was coding in python and wanted to make a function that caches the output because the code was inherently slow.
- but to cache an output we need to know the inputs are the same
- hashes are good for this but lists can’t be hashed with the built-in python hash function
- we can make our own hash, but hashing a list that contains itself is hard
- there is a solution for lists, but then hashing a set that contains itself is a serious problem (MUCH harder than hashing a list)
- turns out hashing a set is the same problem as the graph-coloring problem (graph isomorphism)
- suddenly I have a really deep understanding of recursive data structures all because I wanted to a function that caches its output.
I propose you contribute to Foss software that you use.
With that you are motivated because you are invested in the project, you will see the effect of your work and you learn about the process of contributing and working in a team.
That should keep you going for a while. Best of luck.
To take up a career in programming is to be professionally confused on a day-to-day basis. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed at times, but this is the advice I give younger engineers: accept that confusion, and try to channel it into curiosity instead of letting it fester into stress and anxiety.
This consternation is definitely common. It’s hard to apply skills to something with no long term impact of benefit. I’ve improved my skills by finding stuff I can help on in the communities I participate in.
It’s natural to be overwhelmed, so deciding on a project does scope what you can learn, but a hard part is architecting the foundation of that project.
Introducing new features to an existing project is a great way to get your feet wet - it has multiple benefits, for one of you do take a position as a developer in the future, you likely won’t be architecting anything initially, primarily improving on existing projects. So participating in OSS projects is a similar mechanism to that - you have to learn their codebase to a degree, you have to learn their style and requirements, etc.
Even if you don’t ultimately contribute, it’s still a learning experience.
I found reading through the rust book was a nice walkthrough of problems one can hit and how that language elected to solve them.
In terms of practice:
- Write a vim config
- Shell out to python if you’d like
- Learn a bit of elisp and org-mode
- Rewrite all your shell scripts into a python CLI
- Write a pyqt6 GUI for tasks and notes on the exact way you’ve always wanted it to work
- Write an AI tool to auto-format links etc with phi3
- Very exciting how much these smaller models can do!
- Write a vim config
Try to replicate software/apps you use everyday. Not to improve them, but to figure out how they work. In addition to learning how they work, you’ll learn the problems the original devs had to solve, and one way to solve them.
In addition to your comment, I would add to include apps that don’t sound “as interesting” or different from your usual picks. Along the way, it helps to be willing to refactor if you see a different way to implement it. This can help turn a routine task into a more interesting challenge.
Read/Inspect and contribute to FOSS. They’ll be bigger and longer lived than small, personal, and experimental projects.
Study computer science.
Work, preferably in an environment with mentors, and long-/continuously-maintained projects.
Look at alternative approaches and ecosystems. Like .NET (very good docs and guidance), a functional programming language, Rust, or Web.
That being said, you ask about “should”, but I think if it’s useful for personal utilities that’s good enough as well. Depends on your interest, goals, wants, and where you want to go in the future.
For me, managing my clan servers and website, reading online, and contributing to FOSS were my biggest contributors to learning and expertise.
Seconding the FOSS advice from the perspective of a fellow learner.
I’m a scientist first and foremost, so I’m learning programming on the side. A lot of code that’s written by scientists is pretty grim, so attempting to understand and contribute to FOSS projects has been useful in understanding how a complex project is organised, and how to read code as well as write it.
Contributing can be pretty small, even opening a git issue for a problem, or adding some info to an existing issue. You won’t be able to just dive in and start solving problems all over, and it can feel overwhelming to try as a relative beginner, but it massively improved my skills.
Look at MIT and UC Berkeley’s CS curricula and start tackling things that you haven’t covered. They’re both available freely online and you might still be able to find video recordings of Cal’s lectures somewhere (they recorded every class for students who weren’t present or had difficulty understanding in real time until 2015 or so but were hit with an ADA accessibility lawsuit because they weren’t captioned or something.)
If you want to improve significantly, go read someone else’s code and modify it. Try to fix a bug in a program you use, add a feature you want that doesn’t exist already, or even just do something simple for the sake of proving to yourself that you can do it – like compiling it from source and figuring out how to change some small snippet of text in a message box. Even if you don’t succeed, if you put in a serious effort attempting it, you will almost certainly learn a lot from trying.
Edit: changed wording to try to be clearer
I like to pick a fun project, pick a language I don’t know / wanna learn better, and then just go for it. Don’t be discouraged if somebody’s already made it - nothing says your learning project has to be useful in the real world, tho it’s kinda nice if you think of something that can be. If your project seems intimidatingly hard, remember the programmer workflow of breaking it down into manageable pieces and tackling those. If it doesn’t seem hard enough to teach you anything, I sometimes like to write it without using any external code or libraries (or a minimum of them; if it’s something like a GUI program I’ll use direct vulkan bindings instead of like Qt). This is also one of the few areas I get some use out of LLMs, cuz bullying ChatGPT or a local equivalent into giving me huge and tailored lists of program ideas can be really helpful. Either way my main advice is just to pick something that interests you and have fun with it; things don’t have to be worthwhile to other people to be worthwhile to you.
The way I did it is by trying to solve more and more advanced problems with simpler tools/features, then looking at more advanced features and seeing where they could be applied to make the problem solving simpler. Rinse and repeat.
An easy example that I can remember is making arrays that dynamically expand. I started with the barebones malloc and worked out how to use std::vector (and other list types) in its place.
Understanding that concept is, what I believe, to be the foundation of learning programming.
I’m no pro whatsoever, but using this method really helps me pick up and learn new languages.
Multi-Account Containers extension is looking for more contributors
https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/discussions/2672
This is me wondering… is there anyone who curates and categorizes lists of open source projects actively looking for contributions? Possibly with an organization based on experience level? It’s often hard to tell what project are active enough that entry, intermediate, or experienced level help is needed and for what.