Programming

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How should I continue learning? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/programming

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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

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.