What should/can I program?

Question

I started off completely unknowing of programming, the very basic you can get. I finally finished a tutorial and understand the syntax and concept of Python. Basically I learned the "alphabet" of a language. I'm still not sure what I can do with this. What can I program to get better? I don't see how someone goes from doing something like math operators and loops to making say, Windows softwares like a CD burning program, or a script for a webpage. Etc.

Any suggestions? How do you connect the program aspect of it to a graphic user interface like windows and boxes? Feel like there's a hole somewhere that I haven't quite figured out yet. What do I need to learn next?


I want to be able to good enough (long term goal) to write and tweak and produce/publish my own website from scratch that has lots of features and user input. For example, a social networking site or a dating site, a review site, etc. SOMETHING useful and a very interactive website. I'd love to be able to make templates for wordpress (I know its PHP though) or drupal or something else, or scripts.


I'm heavily UNMOTIVATED when it comes to programming things that have no real applicable value. I'll do it if it'll get me to my goal for sure, but I really wouldnt enjoy writing a Python program for a word based game or tic-tac-toe without a graphic interface. However, I would enjoy making a software with gaphic interface that would help people, fill a need, anything related to the web, mobile, etc.


Any suggestsions on what I can do or should do as a next step? Should I just move on to learning PHP and mastering that instead? I already am familiar with HTML and CSS a bit.

Answer 1

>What can I program to get better?



Anything you want! That's the beauty of it!



I always liked programming games. I got into programming largely because of my interest in gaming (and, ironically, due to limitations on the amount of computer games I was actually able to play at that time), and have been writing them ever since. The great thing about games is that they span the whole spectrum of programming expertise; you have something like Tic-Tac-Toe or Blackjack on the one end and then all the way up to Crysis and Spore on the other end. It also stimulates your imagination if you're coming up with gameplay ideas and then figuring out how to implement them efficiently.



That said, not everyone likes games or game programming so much. You might prefer to write generators or file utilities or something along those lines. Again, though, there's a lot of opportunities and a fairly wide range of difficulty.



>I don't see how someone goes from doing something like math operators and loops to making say, Windows softwares like a CD burning program, or a script for a webpage. Etc.



There isn't really any magical secret to it. You just have to pile up enough math operators and loops on top of each other in complicated ways. The computer has no hardware-level concept of 'playing an MP3' or 'displaying an image' or 'beating you at Checkers'. The hardware just does math really, really fast, and the programmer's job is to make sure the right math gets done so that the desired behavior is produced.



>How do you connect the program aspect of it to a graphic user interface like windows and boxes?



Usually there are libraries for this kind of thing. For instance, if you were using Java, there is a native library that allows you to generate windows with text and images and buttons and scrollbars and so on. I'm not familiar enough with Python to know how to do the same thing there, you'll have to look it up.



>I really wouldnt enjoy writing a Python program for a word based game or tic-tac-toe without a graphic interface.



That's what comes first, though. No one writes the next Windows or Facebook or Crysis right off the bat. For better or for worse, you have to work your way up from the bottom.

Answer 2

I don't know much about python (almost nothing) but I don't think you can create websites with it.



You need to be looking at HTML, PHP, CSS, and some JavaScript.





As a quick summary:



HTML

- Code that the web browser reads to display webpages, basically the visual aspect of webpages.



PHP

- Code executed by the server, not viewable by the web page viewer, processes input and generates HTML code for dynamic webpages.

I would say that this is were most of the action is happening.



CSS

- Modifies the way elements (tables, lists.. etc) from HTML are displayed. Just there to make things look nicer, a non-critical aspect.



JavaScript

- Code that gets executed while the viewer is looking at the webpage, can generate HTML to be displayed. Any JavaScript command can also be executed by the viewer, so JavaScript is just there to handle non-critical stuff which makes the page more dynamic.





Hope that helps.





Edit:

Forgot about SQL, important thing to learn for more complicated web pages.

Answer 3

Speaking from personal experiences, it's a thousand times easier to make something that both looks good and is functional, using PHP & Javascript.

I have the same problem as you - it's hard to see how you can go from something as using loops & math operators, to actually make something of value - however, if you're doing it in PHP & javascript, it's actual possible to make it interactive and look decent without putting in too much effort.



SO, I'd recommend you'd go learn PHP (it's actually extremely easy if you already have a basic understanding of programming)



If you need any help, or ideas on what to make, feel free to write an email to [e-mail] or PM me.

Answer 4

Don't yet. Look for the text game Adventure, and see if you can write your own adventure game. There are tutorials for it all over the web. The first games like Minecraft I played were text-based multi-user "dungeons". Really wait for graphics until you understand doing a project such as a game.

Answer 5

If you like easy UIs, program in VB.NET.

If you want to learn a fairly easy and very popular language then learn Java.

If you want to make web-based things, learn HTML, XML, javascript and PHP. And SQL.

Answer 6

Take a look at JQuery. It is a Javascript library. You can look into the source code and learn Javascript.