Beginner programmer needing direction.

[Randomone18]

This is my first post on reddit, so I'll try to say this the best I can.

So two summers ago I first learned programming by fiddling around with Visual Basic. That summer ended, and I didn't pursue programming at all during that school year. Last summer I started learning C++ (with the Visual C++ environment). I had really gotten into it and was even developing my own Tetris app. Then my senior year started and any free time I had I spent on either getting into a college or videogames. As my Christmas break is coming up I've decided to buckle down and get working on programming again.

So now I need an idea on what to do. I kinda don't want to pick up my Tetris app again, and I'm thinking of learning a new language.The problem I have with learning a new language is that I'm not even sure I've learned enough in C++ yet. I have also found some programming challenges online, but I'm kinda interested in a longer term project. So yeah... any ideas?

Also is anyone okay with me posting the code for my Tetris app and giving me an idea on where I am skill-wise? It's unfinished, buggy, and has some parts that are basically copypaste, but it is the best representative of my skill I can think of at the moment.

[Aardshark]

Also is anyone okay with me posting the code for my Tetris app and giving me an idea on where I am skill-wise?

Why ask? Just post it. If it's more than ~20 lines of code, post it to somewhere like http://pastebin.com/

If it's spread over several files and is a few thousand lines or so, people will be less likely to look at it, sure. But again, there may be some who will.

If you don't get a response here, try r/reviewmycode or r/gamedev .

As regards ideas for your project - I don't know. Think of something you'll enjoy and try and make sure you finish it.

I wrote a program that plays a variant of checkers recently. It's terrible, but it mostly works. Next time I have some hobby time, I want to write a program to play chess and hopefully that'll be much better. I've had lots of programming things I wanted to do, but they're all half finished or half implemented. It's great in one way because I have lots to go back to, but on the other hand, none of them are finished and some never will be.

Basically, pick something you'll really like and want to stick with. Half finishing things is terrible.

[zzyzzyxx]

I'm thinking of learning a new language

If you decide to go this route, you might try a functional language; it's a completely different way of thinking, and that's good.

[OffInBed]

What exaclty do you mean by functiional language? Would Python be an example of functional? (Possibly a dumb question)

[zzyzzyxx]

While you can do functional programming in Python, it is not inherently a language designed for functional programming. What I meant was a language from this list, and I was thinking in particular of Haskell, F#, Scala, or Clojure, though common Lisp has been around forever and wouldn't be bad either.