How do you come up with projects?

[fyleow]

..

 

[mundane]

Identify which features you would like to explore (Remoting, multi threading, DirectX, etc). Then assemble some kind of project that would incorporate those areas. Bonus points if the end product is near useful.

 

[mcturkey]

Well, I tend to look at real world programs and ask myself how I would create something like that. From there, I begin my research and start coding. It gives me a better mental image of my goal, which keeps me a bit more focused.

 

[reverend boltron]

Try finding some courses that are online. By that I mean, try finding a class from a university that the professor keeps online, and go through all of their assignments. That is how I got some assembly experience. Effowe was taking an assembly class and he gave me the link, and I went through and did the whole thing. I don't quite remember any of it, but that was many years ago.

 

[Schadenfroh]

BlackJack... always BlackJack, I learned my basic C++ skills writing a blackjack (console) game ..... Ahh memories, still have it on my HD somewhere if anyone wants to play it, I will PM you the source

 

[George P Burdell]

Originally posted by: mcturkey
Well, I tend to look at real world programs and ask myself how I would create something like that. From there, I begin my research and start coding. It gives me a better mental image of my goal, which keeps me a bit more focused.

Sounds like a good idea.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
BlackJack... always BlackJack, I learned my basic C++ skills writing a blackjack (console) game ..... Ahh memories, still have it on my HD somewhere if anyone wants to play it, I will PM you the source

He is a great programmer - lousy player

Seriously, take a small program that you are familiar with (either that you have written or you understand the concepts of) and then write it in the new language.

That makes it easier to locate the problems.

 

[sao123]

I learn new languages from a college textbook... like those from Deitel.com and just use the homework assignments at the end of each chapter.

 

[Aikouka]

I usually pick the oddest project that I can think of.. but something I'm still interested in. When I needed to learn VBS... well, VBS is just Visual Basic (blech) with scripting (double blech)... so how to make it fun? Write a scripting language in a scripting language. It ended up being a lot of fun and showed me a lot of things.

 

[lozina]

Just look at some of the applications and tools that come with windows. Stuff like calculator, notepad, file search. Good simple tasks and chances are you will probably write something 1000x faster and more user friendly than the ones that they made

 

[reverend boltron]

Originally posted by: lozina
Just look at some of the applications and tools that come with windows. Stuff like calculator, notepad, file search. Good simple tasks and chances are you will probably write something 1000x faster and more user friendly than the ones that they made

ZING!

 

[George P Burdell]

Originally posted by: lozina
Just look at some of the applications and tools that come with windows. Stuff like calculator, notepad, file search. Good simple tasks and chances are you will probably write something 1000x faster and more user friendly than the ones that they made

That brings back memories! Back in freshman year, I replaced the notepad.exe on my roommate's computer with my homemade version that would replace certain words with other four-letter words.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: sao123
I learn new languages from a college textbook... like those from Deitel.com and just use the homework assignments at the end of each chapter.

The cover art of those deitel books give me nightmares.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[Jaxidian]

Write the same program over and over in various languages. Use some common interface so one program can communicate with another one (sockets? database? files? all of the above?). Make the program something like a game so one of your programs can compete with the other. Oh, and log exactly how long everything takes to do. Chess would be kind of an extreme example that would be a great learning experience but probably too complicated. However, something like checkers would be much more feasible.

Doing something like this will allow you to understand how to do common tasks in various languages and compare one versus the other. Maybe File IO in C# took you 10 minutes to write whereas in C++ it took you 3 hours BUT the C# code is 5% slower. Now you have not just the knowhow but you have actual, useful metrics to compare the performance of one language to another (or at least your knowhow in one language versus another).

Just my $0.02 worth.

-Jax