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Ask HN: Please help me get out of this infinite loop of n00bness

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Ask HN: Please help me get out of this infinite loop of n00bness

#1

Post by Brewer »

I've been programming for just over a year now and I don't feel like I've learned nearly as much as I should have. Not only that, I feel like I'm not making any progress either. I feel like I'm stuck in an infinite loop of n00bness.

I haven't work on anything that I would really consider a “project” yet, which I'm sure isn't a good thing at all. I just don't have any ideas for projects.

What can I do to become a better programmer? I'm sure that I want to develop software for a living, but I feel like I'm not on the right part at the moment.

Re: Ask HN: Please help me get out of this infinite loop of n00bness

#2

Post by jacksondeane »

You are going to hear this anytime this question is asked.

A: "Build Something!"

Reading books and following tutorials are all well and good, but you are not going to fully understand what it takes to be a professional developers until you start creating full applications.

Don't worry about the design, or perfect architecture, just come up with a small idea and build it.

Re: Ask HN: Please help me get out of this infinite loop of n00bness

#3

Post by Brewer »

jacksondeane wrote: post #2

You are going to hear this anytime this question is asked. A: "Build Something!" Reading books and following tutorials are all well and good, but you are not going to fully understand what it takes to be a professional developers until you start creating full applications. Don't worry about the design, or perfect architecture, just come up with a small idea and build it.

I don't have any ideas and anything I see when I search for ideas just seems silly.

Re: Ask HN: Please help me get out of this infinite loop of n00bness

#4

Post by IgorPartola »

If you are a student, I would join the Google Summer of Code. You can actually get paid while learning something. You could also look for Open Source projects that need a maintainer. Or grab one of the lists of startup ideas and try to implement one. Yet another solution would be to try to implement a web server or a framework just for fun.

You are right in that you need to work on projects to become a better programmer: that is the fastest way to learn. There are a ton of problems out there that need solving. You just need to find ones that interest you.

Re: Ask HN: Please help me get out of this infinite loop of n00bness

#5

Post by invertedlambda »

Brewer wrote: post #3
jacksondeane wrote: post #2

You are going to hear this anytime this question is asked. A: "Build Something!" Reading books and following tutorials are all well and good, but you are not going to fully understand what it takes to be a professional developers until you start creating full applications. Don't worry about the design, or perfect architecture, just come up with a small idea and build it.

I don't have any ideas and anything I see when I search for ideas just seems silly.

Build a blog. Keep it simple:

Have a homepage with 10 most recent posts

- Post can have many comments

- Only users can comment

- Users must be logged in to comment

- Only you (an admin) can log in and make posts. Or anyone else with credential.

- Use SSL to encrypt your login.

Extra credit:

- Posts can have tags. Harder than you think.

- Comments can have comments. This is harder than you think.

Extra extra credit:

- Implement it once using an SQL database. SQLite/MySQL/Postgres will be fine.

- Implement it using a NoSQL database. MongoDB will probably be the simplest.

Re: Ask HN: Please help me get out of this infinite loop of n00bness

#6

Post by Brewer »

IgorPartola wrote: post #4

If you are a student, I would join the Google Summer of Code. You can actually get paid while learning something. You could also look for Open Source projects that need a maintainer. Or grab one of the lists of startup ideas and try to implement one. Yet another solution would be to try to implement a web server or a framework just for fun. You are right in that you need to work on projects to become a better program…

"Or grab one of the lists of startup ideas and try to implement one."

What lists of startup ideas?

Re: Ask HN: Please help me get out of this infinite loop of n00bness

#10

Post by glassx »

Brewer wrote: post #6
IgorPartola wrote: post #4

If you are a student, I would join the Google Summer of Code. You can actually get paid while learning something. You could also look for Open Source projects that need a maintainer. Or grab one of the lists of startup ideas and try to implement one. Yet another solution would be to try to implement a web server or a framework just for fun. You are right in that you need to work on projects to become a better program…

"Or grab one of the lists of startup ideas and try to implement one." What lists of startup ideas?

There's one right here: http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html
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