Newbie Programming

[Kaden]

On 19 Dec 2001 20:32:54 -0800, Evan Roman <manutd8611 at softhome.net> wrote:

> I have just begun programming in Python a couple months ago.  While i
> feel like i am doing OK, i don't think im getting any better.  The
> problem is i can't think of anything to program... I think I have most
> of the fundamentals down, but i can't think of any ways to use them. 
> I was just wondering if there was some website that gives ideas of
> little projects to do so that one could sharpen his programming
> skills.  Thanx in advance for all the help.

Then don't try to write things from scratch.  When you learned to write,
it would of been much easier to read something someone else wrote and
then add your two cents worth than for you to sit down and write your own
novel, correct?  So why try to do that with programming?

Go to someplace like sourceforge and look at their python snippits. If
you find something there that sounds kind of useful, or even sort of
silly but fun, download it. Run it once or twice and find something that
it needs. Add a new feature. Fix a bug. Rewrite it to be more efficient.

This allows you to already have the bulk of the work done for
you, and you can try and read what the author has done and figure out
why he did things the way he did. Then, using that as a template, you
can write a few lines of code that work with what he's already written
and change the way the program works.