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Easy Tasks to start with Programming

by Bashty
8 replies
Hey guys,
I'm just starting out with programming and, as we know, practise makes perfect.
So now I'm wondering which easy applications I could start out with programming for practise. No, I do not want to write "Hello World" programs (I'm already able to do that ), I mean stuff like a program that would ping a URL that I enter to 30 ping-services or similar IM-related stuff.

Now I don't yet exactly what is necessary to program those applications, therefore I hereby would like to get some recommendations on what would be a good thing to start with and then maybe some more advanced applications, so I can expand my knowledge and skill over time.

I'm using Ruby by the way (OMG I can handle a number like an object! ) and have had a bit of experience in other programming language, but not utilized it for about two years.

Hope you can make some suggestions, I'm really eager to try stuff and get my programming skills going


Sebastian
#easy #programming #start #tasks
  • Profile picture of the author mystline
    As a PHP developer I just try and create things that will help me streamline and autopilot my site creation/link building.

    On my list to do is a web app that will scrape user submitted RSS feeds and keep track of links for seo purposes, it'll also scrape useful information like tags, a short description etc.

    Basically things you would normally pay for in your IM journey.
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    • Profile picture of the author Bashty
      Originally Posted by mystline View Post

      As a PHP developer I just try and create things that will help me streamline and autopilot my site creation/link building.

      On my list to do is a web app that will scrape user submitted RSS feeds and keep track of links for seo purposes, it'll also scrape useful information like tags, a short description etc.

      Basically things you would normally pay for in your IM journey.
      I'm only having a handful niche blogs, I have seo plugins and use onlywire for social bookmarking (even have a plugin that automatically submits new posts to onlywire). I have a very good indexing software and basically that's about all I need at the moment.
      That's why I was asking ;-)

      The only thing I could think of would be programming a social bookmarking software myself for non-English services, because I'm in a non-English market also and haven't seen free solutions for this.
      I'm just not sure whether or not this would be suitable for a first attempt, as I'm very new to the language and therefore wanted to start out with some easier applications, that's why I was asking

      The only thing I would pay for at the moment would be writing content and I don't want to rely on a program to write my content ;-)

      Thanks anyway! Hope for more answers
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      • Profile picture of the author mystline
        Originally Posted by Bashty View Post

        The only thing I would pay for at the moment would be writing content and I don't want to rely on a program to write my content ;-)

        Thanks anyway! Hope for more answers
        What language are you learning?
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        • Profile picture of the author Tashi Mortier
          I'm sure you can find some easy tasks by looking at what you're doing. That's what most of my ideas come from:

          I find myself stupidly copying and modifying things from one text file to another, then I write a script for it.

          Start automating your tedious tasks you'll have a lot to do there. Look at programs / solutions that you use, think of tools that you wish you had. Every major problem can be split into smaller problems you can expand your knowledge on.

          Your first project doesn't have to be perfect (you shouldn't sell it anyways) just get started.

          I learned object oriented programming when I dove into the Qt framework (C++). It was very hard but very rewarding.
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  • Profile picture of the author caesargus
    The majority of apps that I build are things that help speed up my day to day tasks. For instance, I have a code snippet library built up of code that I find myself normally looking up and typing out.

    This allows my mind to think about other things like what things will help me speed up even more. As you gain more experience, you'll be able to build other things that help you speed up.

    For instance, I was able to build out code generators that would build the entire Select, Insert, Update, Delete scripts/routines that I normally build out for a website - I am able to point the script to the database, and the script will build out the rest.
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  • Profile picture of the author abnation
    Some kinda scraper maybe?
    I always liked these kinds of projects... Information gathering. Try creating a simple yellow pages scraper or something similar to that. Anyhow, I do agree with writing something that will ultimately result in automation. That's always great.
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  • Profile picture of the author studiesinn
    First start with c and c++ basics and get some good programming concepts. If you c/c++ concepts are clear you can program in any programming language.
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    • Profile picture of the author Bashty
      Originally Posted by caesargus View Post

      For instance, I was able to build out code generators that would build the entire Select, Insert, Update, Delete scripts/routines that I normally build out for a website - I am able to point the script to the database, and the script will build out the rest.
      I'm actually using wordpress, so I don't need this for my websites, but if I should ever go away from wordpress I'd take that ;-)

      Originally Posted by mystline View Post

      What language are you learning?
      I'm learning ruby.
      Originally Posted by abnation View Post

      Some kinda scraper maybe?
      I always liked these kinds of projects... Information gathering. Try creating a simple yellow pages scraper or something similar to that. Anyhow, I do agree with writing something that will ultimately result in automation. That's always great.
      I might try writing a scraper, if you can call it that, for blogs to comment on or to trackback to, that's a nice idea I think, thanks
      Now I just need to learn how to interact with google...

      Originally Posted by studiesinn View Post

      First start with c and c++ basics and get some good programming concepts. If you c/c++ concepts are clear you can program in any programming language.
      I have done some programming in the past, learned delphi at school, done a bit of html and php, and in the end python. At home I also read a book and tutorials about c and c++ and tried to program a little game with it (failed when the graphic wouldn't work and my computer crashed a week later, leaving me without a backup copy and missing the knowledge of how to recover the data... so it was gone and I didn't feel like pursuing that goal anymore ).
      Also I have done some easy programming tasks apart from school for my teacher, like a math-trainer for his son or a vocab trainer (that was quite some work back then, but I did it! ).

      I just haven't been actively programming for about 1-2 years now and so I need to get back into the whole thing. But I believe that I still have the programming principles down, guess it's like riding a bike, you just never forget how it works.

      Originally Posted by Tashi Mortier View Post

      Start automating your tedious tasks you'll have a lot to do there. Look at programs / solutions that you use, think of tools that you wish you had. Every major problem can be split into smaller problems you can expand your knowledge on.

      Your first project doesn't have to be perfect (you shouldn't sell it anyways) just get started.
      I guess some kind of backlinking tool would be something that I really wish for at the moment. I'm thinking about buying the backlink bomb software, seems to be really great. But apart from that the idea of creating a trackback-link-scraper software would be a nice thing to do.
      I think I'll try that one!

      Thanks everyone for the answers, I hadn't looked into this thread for a few days, because I didn't receive any more replies, but I am happy for all your thoughts and thankful that you are willing to help the "new guy"
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