Programming exercises/challenges

[r0g]

Edwin wrote:
> On Nov 18, 6:39 pm, btk... at email.unc.edu wrote:
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> I'm learning Python by teaching myself, and after going through several
>> tutorials I feel like I've learned the basics. Since I'm not taking a
>> class or anything, I've been doing challenges/programs to reinforce the
>> material and improve my skills. I started out with stuff like "Guess my
>> number" games, hangman, etc. and moved on to making poker and card
>> games to work with classes. For GUIs I created games like minesweeper,
>> and a GUI stock portfolio tracker. I am out of ideas and am looking forprogrammingprojects, 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 myprogrammingskills; they are more math focused.
>> 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.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ben
> 
> I'm also learning Python by myself, downloading open ebooks, reading
> tutorials, reading other people's code, etc. and in order to put my
> knowledge into practice I've been writing small programs to solve my
> everyday computer problems: a simple email client (because sometimes
> it seems to me that email clients now have so many features and
> preferences) that reads my fetchmailrc, a diary manager compatible
> with my Emacs diary file (sometimes I don't want to open Emacs for a
> quick note)... in general I try to solve problems related to my own
> workflow.
> 
> I also try to play with some of my girlfriend's ideas on computer use:
> she came up with an idea for a calculator with which she could easily
> keep track of our bills (but found financial software a bit
> complicated for simple tasks, once again, too many features and
> preferences) so I started to code a small multi-touch app as
> "intuitive" as possible (and still working on it).
> 
> What I'm saying is that I've found useful not to think about
> programming itself but just think of it as a medium to solve my own
> (common) problems.
> 
> Best regards,
> E.

Spotted this on facebook t'other day, don't know if it's still active
and don't have time to check really.

http://www.facebook.com/jobs_puzzles/index.php

I've found writing your own servers can be an good hands on way of
learning languages and various internet protocols, just make sure you
have Wireshark to hand for debugging!

Roger.