Ask HN: What projects did you build to get better as a programmer?
What projects to start building after learning fundamentals of programming to get out of the tutorial and MOOC rabbit hole? It's more like taking the training wheels off at some point while learning to ride a bicycle.
I know the suggestion is to build what I like. But what if I don't have any problem at hand because I don't know the space much. What projects can I start with? Things that can operate as standalone projects and can be used.
I find most university courses are also limiting in this aspect. They only ask to implement part of the project (only a few functionalities). Maybe I haven't looked into many. I am not saying university courses or books are useless. They have their place. They can be very useful to fill in the gaps of our knowledge. But they are not all in all. We have to build tangible concrete things and get things done. They may be small projects. Atleast that's what makes a great designer or in general engineer. They make things in their garage or workspace even if they are tiny projects.
What type of projects (guided or not) can I build so that I can get an idea of the space and they start getting ideas of my own to build. Along the way I have to read up stuff e.g: unknown datastructures or algorithms to fill in my knowledge bucket.
And also I have doubts regarding how far can I go with that rudimentary knowledge of programming? When do I start learning more about other things like systems, algorithms, databases, etc?
I know the suggestion is to build what I like. But what if I don't have any problem at hand because I don't know the space much. What projects can I start with? Things that can operate as standalone projects and can be used.
I find most university courses are also limiting in this aspect. They only ask to implement part of the project (only a few functionalities). Maybe I haven't looked into many. I am not saying university courses or books are useless. They have their place. They can be very useful to fill in the gaps of our knowledge. But they are not all in all. We have to build tangible concrete things and get things done. They may be small projects. Atleast that's what makes a great designer or in general engineer. They make things in their garage or workspace even if they are tiny projects.
What type of projects (guided or not) can I build so that I can get an idea of the space and they start getting ideas of my own to build. Along the way I have to read up stuff e.g: unknown datastructures or algorithms to fill in my knowledge bucket.
And also I have doubts regarding how far can I go with that rudimentary knowledge of programming? When do I start learning more about other things like systems, algorithms, databases, etc?