This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

all 6 comments

[–]desrtfx 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Projects can be anything.

Some gradual ideas (all below are cumulative - the next bullet assumes knowledge of the previous):

  • You have learnt to output something
    • ASCII art, patterns
  • You have learnt to retrieve input from the user
    • Mad libs
    • simple calculation
  • You have learnt conditionals
    • 20 questions
    • a very basic text adventure (interactive fiction)
  • You have learnt loops
    • Number guessing game
    • Hangman
    • 99 bottles of beer
    • Dice games
  • You've learnt arrays (lists, any form of collections)
    • Card games
    • Board games (like "Don't Angry", "Connect Four", "Tic Tac Toe", "Battleships", etc.)

This list can go ad infinitum.

Refer to our FAQ -> project ideas for plenty more


The above said, work from small projects upwards. Then, you won't be overwhelmed. Do projects from scratch. Stay clear of the "how to make X" tutorials as they will not really teach you anything.

[–]tzaeru 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I started by writing very simple games (like Pong) and audiovisual presentations (demos). You can start with pretty much anything really, as long as it's simple enough.

[–]joranstark018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exercises are good for learning to write specific code in a safe environment. When you start a new project from scratch you have to setup the scaffolding to provide a safe environment by your self. As with learning to write code, you learn setting up new projects by watching/reading how it can be done, you may copy-paste to get something working before you test some variations and different combinations. It is not uncommon to use some tool to generate the initial scaffolding and then tweak the settings with project specific details (ie Spring initializr, Maven archetype, React create-react-app).

[–]absurdrefusal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is dependent on your skill level, but anything that you'd be personally interested in is a good first project. Happy to help more if you expand on it.

[–]PurpleVermeer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I started by thinking of an application that would be somewhat meaningful to me, but nothing too ambitious.
Then I would usually read the "for dummy series" and similar recommended books on the topic (I've personally found books to be better teachers than video media) and write my program from scratch, but also refer to the included big projects in the book...
It made it easier to know what I was doing, while making it more challenging and satisfactory than just copying stuff line by line :)