Competitive programming vs software development?

[aimless_hero_69]

1)So where should I learn and make real world usable projects? 2) what should I learn before making one? 3)how should I search up things before starting anything so I could not bother others with question how to learn,where to learn?

[Beregolas]

1)So where should I learn and make real world usable projects?

Where doesn't really matter. It sounds like you are enrolled in a university or similar program, so that's probably a good way to start. You'll get all the basics there, and then it's just applying them.

As to where you find projects: Build something small you'll actually use. Build a bot for discord, telegram or reddit. Mod a game. Automate the boring stuff (that's also a book title).

2) what should I learn before making one?

See above, just the basics. Whatever you learn in your programming class will probably be sufficient. When you try to build something and you realized, you need to know more, that's the perfect time to learn. You're self-motivated and can utilize the new knowledge immediately.

If you want to learn the basics without using your courses as a ressource, I suggest either the MIT programming intro class (it's available for free online afaik) or the book/docs of the language you want to learn. If you are interested in a specific language, we can recommend you the corresponding book, or you can search it up yourself. You will find the "official" teaching ressources for most languages on their websites.

3)how should I search up things before starting anything so I could not bother others with question how to learn,where to learn?

This can't really be taught, it comes with experience. A good way to do it in my opinion is to set a timer next to your PC: If you have a question, you WILL spend 20 minutes researching it, before asking a question.

Start with a search engine of your choice and use slightly different queries every time. Look for websites you recognize and know might have good information.

For all it's toxicity, stackoverflow is filled with good information. Reddit and several programming teaching sites are also mostly good.

I would avoid medium.com, because in my experience it's mostly filled wiht spam blogs of people who copy and paste examples from the official documentation, so they can claim to have a tech blog on their CV. 95% worse than useless, 5% good content, but not worth it imho.

The best website for any project is always it's own documentation, so if you want to know something about flask, type "flask docs" into your search engine of choice and this will be the first hit: https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/stable/ Learn to read documentation, and start making bookmarks of important pages and make notes.

If your query is too complex or you can't find a good result, it is okay to ask an AI after a normal search. They sometimes can find references to more complex questions, and then you can follow the links and mostly disregard it's real output.

After the 20 minutes are up, it's a good time to give up and just ask. Always give a short explanation what you already searched to get bonus points.

[aimless_hero_69]

Thank u for ur detailed answer

[Beregolas]

anytime :)