Programming exercises/challenges

[Tomasz Rola]

On Tue, 18 Nov 2008, btkuhn at email.unc.edu wrote:

[...]
> challenges, or programs that have helped you'll learn. I'm working on the
> project Euler problems, but I find that they don't really help my programming
> skills; they are more math focused.

Project Euler and others focus more on the so called algorithmic side of 
programming. You may find it a big fun later. For now, they probably look 
bizarre to you.

> Suggestions? What has been useful or
> interesting to you? I'd also welcome sources of textbook type problems,
> because the ones provided in tutorials tend to be repetitive.

I would say, start looking for something in your own life, that can be 
improved with the use of a program. This requires a bit of thinking in a 
specific way, kind of awareness. Once you spot your own ideas, you will 
probably run out of time to implement them all. If you have some interests 
beyond programming :), finding them should not be that hard. If there are 
some books related to those interests, they should be a good start. The 
way you do it now, I think it is much better to connect your newly gained 
knowledge with real-life activity rather then to solve yet another 
"imagined" problem from a book, writing throwaway programs to prove that 
you can write them. I am quite sure, that for every domain there is a lot 
of big and small ideas waiting for a programmer. So you can start with 
simple things and as you learn, try your luck with bigger ones. Writing 
real life programs will give you an opportunity to learn some python 
libraries, which is a good thing too.

Nice attitude :-).

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **