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Ask HN: What projects did you build to get better as a programmer?

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Re: Ask HN: What projects did you build to get better as a programmer?

#41

Post by programmor »

eterm wrote: post #15

I found the trick was to get a job in software development. That solved the problem of trying to find things to do, other people do that hard work and bring me requirements. They even pay me for it too! I don't know what you're after, but if your aim is to go into software development as a profession then read on. Otherwise skip the rest. Honestly, if you have the fundamentals down you can probably find an entry leve…

> There are even far too many who hate that 80% and often will not be scared to share this disdain freely. The trick is to ignore them, fully engage with the whole job and you'll quickly out pace them in career development...

Taking cheap shots at your coworkers is the true way to get outpaced in career development. If OP is looking for career advice, this kind of attitude is not good advice. Humility is the right path.

The 20% is not accurate, at least in the U.S. in my personal experience. Requirements-gathering, software design and implementation is maybe around 60% of your job at most companies in the U.S. At the end of the day, you get paid to connect the business domain to the technical details of software that will solve the problem; the other 40% of the time you are not doing technical things, you are responsible to communicate, attend meetings, give updates, ask questions, and manage projects.

At least, after you've gained some experience. Being a good programmer is how you get the job in the first place. You have to build up the rest of the package, which is very doable if you are humble and join the right company.

Re: Ask HN: What projects did you build to get better as a programmer?

#42

Post by abhinuvpitale »

If you're learning a scripting language, building a web scraper is a great way to learn some fundamentals of a language by using the basic data structures, getting the data flow correct and solving regex, parsing and printing issues.

Protip: use an IDE and a debugger to turbocharge your lesson!

Re: Ask HN: What projects did you build to get better as a programmer?

#44

Post by Cody_C »

mcapodici wrote: post #37
Cody_C wrote: post #33

One recommendation I don't hear often is build something that will stick with you. Keeping with the apprenticeship/tooling idea, I would build something that you will use over time. You will be forced to keep backwards compatibility in mind, you will see what makes a process have friction, you will see odd bugs from a random edge case you will have to fix or discover. Treat yourself as the customer and build a tool y…

I agree. I accidentally ended up using the very basic todolist in my starter kit https://github.com/mcapodici/firestarter for all my todos! And noticed the ui and ux issues as a result.

Yeah it is funny what you will discover when you are forced to use something you can change.

You also sadly realize how much software gets shipped that if the person who wrote it used it, would hate it. You have incredible leverage with software. What would you change about the UI/UX?

Re: Ask HN: What projects did you build to get better as a programmer?

#45

Post by dev_0 »

brutus1213 wrote: post #26

This is an excellent topic and I was hoping to find a set of great ideas here (really love the http server example). I was thinking of the concept of Katas in martial arts. What would be the Katas for programming I wonder. Some thoughts: 1) Build your own database. Not a SQL db. Just something that takes records on a cli and enables retrieval. Persist the data. Support better queries/ 2) Maze solver. 3) Snake game 4)…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: What projects did you build to get better as a programmer?

#46

Post by daltont »

I have some basic ideas that I have implemented in multiple languages. I think of them as "Rosetta Stone" projects:

- Bowling score - More of an exercise than a project.

- Sudoku solver - Also an exercise, but could be more with a UI.

- "Setting Sun" tile puzzle with UI. Saw one of these at a Cracker Barrel restaurant (https://www.siammandalay.com/products/setting-sun)

- Wordle with UI - I've only done one in Rust/WASM, but might do one in Dart/Flutter.

Re: Ask HN: What projects did you build to get better as a programmer?

#47

Post by eterm »

programmor wrote: post #41
eterm wrote: post #15

I found the trick was to get a job in software development. That solved the problem of trying to find things to do, other people do that hard work and bring me requirements. They even pay me for it too! I don't know what you're after, but if your aim is to go into software development as a profession then read on. Otherwise skip the rest. Honestly, if you have the fundamentals down you can probably find an entry leve…

> There are even far too many who hate that 80% and often will not be scared to share this disdain freely. The trick is to ignore them, fully engage with the whole job and you'll quickly out pace them in career development... Taking cheap shots at your coworkers is the true way to get outpaced in career development. If OP is looking for career advice, this kind of attitude is not good advice. Humility is the right pa…

I think you misunderstood my comment, at no point did I suggest taking "cheap shots" at anyone, and indeed my advice was to focus on "the rest of the package" as you suggest.

Re: Ask HN: What projects did you build to get better as a programmer?

#48

Post by flappyeagle »

The 2 projects that I learned the most from:

1. A crazy verilog based class at Berkeley (CS150 back in the day). Proably in the lab for at least 4hrs a day for a semester writing code with a 20min compilation time

2. Spectacularly failed attempt at building a shared calendar app at a big co for internal use. I was a junior programmer and got assigned huge portions of it with the instruction to make “work like outlook”. Learned a ton. Company got basically nothing of value in the end other than a much improved engineer

Theme for both was hugely ambitious project and an absolute ass-ton of reps

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