[squeak-dev] Project Ideas

This has been sent to both the Squeak-dev list and the squeak beginners list

For those of you that don't know me, I am a 14 year old programmer.  I want to write something useful, but I don't have any ideas!  I have always had this problem, with any language, and, all of the problems that have been going around on the mailing lists seem to hard for me to work on, as I am not very proficient as a developer and I am looking for some easy beginner projects!  Thank you in advance!

--
David Zmick
/dz0004455\
http://dz0004455.googlepages.com

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 02:37:44PM -0500, David Zmick wrote:
>    This has been sent to both the Squeak-dev list and the squeak beginners
>    list
>
>    For those of you that don't know me, I am a 14 year old programmer.  I
>    want to write something useful, but I don't have any ideas!  I have always
>    had this problem, with any language, and, all of the problems that have
>    been going around on the mailing lists seem to hard for me to work on, as
>    I am not very proficient as a developer and I am looking for some easy
>    beginner projects!  Thank you in advance!

There are some ideas we would like to see on the Google Summer
of Code ideas page:

http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6032

You are not eligible to participate in Google Summer of Code if
you are under 18, but feel free to try tackling one of those
projects anyway.

And don't forget, all of us who know how to squeak had to try it
without knowing how at first. Hang out on the #squeak channel
when you have a question; people are always willing to help.

There is no quick way to learn how to program. You just have to
do it and learn.

Have fun.

--
Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/

> This has been sent to both the Squeak-dev list and the squeak beginners list
>
> For those of you that don't know me, I am a 14 year old programmer.  I want
> to write something useful, but I don't have any ideas!  I have always had
> this problem, with any language, and, all of the problems that have been
> going around on the mailing lists seem to hard for me to work on, as I am
> not very proficient as a developer and I am looking for some easy beginner
> projects!  Thank you in advance!

IMHO, the best projects are the ones you've come up with yourself.  In
the end, virtually every one of the projects I've worked on has been
one where I either needed a tool to solve some job and the existing
solutions didn't do it for me, or there was some problem space I was
simply curious about.  In the latter case, more often than not, there
are much better solutions out there waiting for me to just pick up and
use, but, of course, that's not the point.  The point is to try things
out yourself, just for the fun of it.  As an example, I decided to
write my own raytracer a while back (just like probably millions of
other programmers :).  Now, there are a ton of raytracers out there,
every one one far more capable than the one I wrote.  But the point of
the project wasn't to create something unique or useful.  It was just
fun!

So, to sum it up:  do something you like and that you're interested
in.  Don't worry if it's useful.  Don't worry if anyone will care.
You're 14, for goodness sake, you've got plenty of time to make your
mark. :)  And those projects *you* come up with are ones you'll likely
be far more passionate about and interested in.

Incidentally, among a few projects in my earlier days, there was:  a
little space invaders-style game, a breakout-style game, a simple fire
simulation, a basic starfield renderer (you can see what my early
interests were :), a version of the old snake game, an equivalent of
the readline library with history (back in my old Pascal days)...
notice, none terribly original, but I sure had a good time, and I
learned a heck of a lot.

Brett.

Brett Kosinski a écrit :
> Incidentally, among a few projects in my earlier days, there was:  a
> little space invaders-style game, a breakout-style game, a simple fire
> simulation, a basic starfield renderer (you can see what my early
> interests were :), a version of the old snake game, an equivalent of
> the readline library with history (back in my old Pascal days)...
> notice, none terribly original, but I sure had a good time, and I
> learned a heck of a lot.

for my part I did a few Mandelbrot set explorers :)

Hello David,

Brett imho has given a very relevant reply.

In addition: Whatever you start will at some point lead to some
difficulties and then you need a motivation to continue and overcome
these. At that point a motivation coming from inside you (fun, you
want to have the result, whatever) is much better than external
motivation (money, somebody else's expectations).

Learning happens when you are interested and less so when you try to
accomplish some externally set goal.

So IMHO start trying some of the tutorials as long as you find them
interesting. This will give you some training with the tools. Then
find something you're really interested in and if you estimate it too
big for your skills, start on as many details of the whole problem as
you feel you have ideas for. Things will evolve from there.

One thing I always find interesting is simulations, which often are
the core of games. Make a model of how you think something works,
implement the model, play with it, improve it. The central heating of
my house or traffic jams are two things I don't do since years :-))

And don't forget to ask for help here!

Cheers,

Herbert                                        

thank you all of you, I will begin trying to find something to work on right away!




--
David Zmick
/dz0004455\
http://dz0004455.googlepages.com