Hey all. I am returning to tforum after years of inactivity on the Tor network in pursuit to learn programming. I have spent the better part of two years now trying to develop the skills to be a developer for a career. It just seems that no matter what I do, unfortunately it is not seeming to click. I understand the basics and syntax of python, same with HTML, JS, CSS. I can't ever seem to get past this. I have even tried tabling HTML JS and CSS because I feel like I am overwhelming myself. I figure what better place to come for advice than tforum.
One of the best ways to understand software is to start with a completed version and work backwards to understand its individual parts.
Find or purchase quality source code and read through all of it. Even if you don't understand all of it, just through pattern recognition alone you will grow your skills.
I've read somewhere that the Postfix project (email) is famous for its well-written code and clean design.
Given the technologies you listed, you may be more interested in frontend projects. Even on sites like Themeforest I have purchased affordable full stack apps (React + Django) that had good code quality you could easily learn from.
And for just HTML, JS, and CSS, tools like Httrack can clone/mirror the entire site and as long as they haven't obscured the source code, you have original sources intact from your favorite website and you can use their style to influence your work.
Then when your work becomes popular and $$$ flows in, circle back and thank the source project with some of the $$$. And on and on it goes.
Find or purchase quality source code and read through all of it. Even if you don't understand all of it, just through pattern recognition alone you will grow your skills.
I've read somewhere that the Postfix project (email) is famous for its well-written code and clean design.
Given the technologies you listed, you may be more interested in frontend projects. Even on sites like Themeforest I have purchased affordable full stack apps (React + Django) that had good code quality you could easily learn from.
And for just HTML, JS, and CSS, tools like Httrack can clone/mirror the entire site and as long as they haven't obscured the source code, you have original sources intact from your favorite website and you can use their style to influence your work.
Then when your work becomes popular and $$$ flows in, circle back and thank the source project with some of the $$$. And on and on it goes.
I have this dream to build full stack applications or maybe even to try gamedev. Do you think starting learning front end intensively while keeping up with backend would be a good strategy?
Looking for some good source code right now.
Looking for some good source code right now.
Yup you got it, no matter what area you're focusing on at the moment, always keep sharp with the other parts of your app. Especially as a full stack or gamedev, you'll naturally be working across all lines of code.
There's a website you may be interested in I have in my collection. They reverse engineer AAA (and other types) games and track progress of how much of the game is de-compiled back into source code.
It may be beneficial to read through the projects to understand data structures + algorithms, and why game developers make certain decisions.
I have the link saved somewhere in my files, I will search for it this week and send it to you.
Game building and hacking has always been on my wish list, so DM me and we'll stay in touch and cook something up.
There's a website you may be interested in I have in my collection. They reverse engineer AAA (and other types) games and track progress of how much of the game is de-compiled back into source code.
It may be beneficial to read through the projects to understand data structures + algorithms, and why game developers make certain decisions.
I have the link saved somewhere in my files, I will search for it this week and send it to you.
Game building and hacking has always been on my wish list, so DM me and we'll stay in touch and cook something up.
There are a lot of free tutorials on YouTube for frontend/backend development. Also GitHub/codeberg/gitlab is your friend. Try making some commits or just see commits of some popular projects, you can learn a lot by doing this, bit first you really need to learn and understand how does programming language work behind the scenes like pointers, arrays, singletons and so on. However, from your post, it seems you're more interested in frontend development than mobile/desktop app development or backend development. Or at least I can't understand what's exactly holding you from going forward. You mentioned something about game programming in one of the comments below, but knowing Python won't help much (in college, they told me it was bad that they taught us Python first, which is a fairly easy language, instead of C or C++ because we get too lazy and can't understand more complex languages. After all, the Python interpreter is based on C). C++ or C is usually used for game and application programming. Have you even tried learning with AI when you do not understand something? For example, chatpgt, gemini, claude? Even on the free plans. I also recommend supporting your programming in VSCode/IntelliJ Idea with AI plugins like GitHub's Copilot. In fact, from what I see, most people today either heavily rely on AI or use AI for everything, writing commands and writing almost no lines of code. If you don't want to be left behind, you need to adapt to the market. Good luck.
Yup I got you:
decomp.dev/projects
github.com/SamidyFR/Game-Decompilations
decomp.dev/projects
github.com/SamidyFR/Game-Decompilations
It sounds like you have the technical knowledge at this point. Try to sit down and figure out what things you have special knowledge in. What have you dove deep into in the past? What niche would you be able to hit? Look up and see if there's any projects doing that. If there aren't, then try to start one yourself.
The hard part to remember is that the only way to learn is to make mistakes and put yourself out there. If you don't, you'll stay in tutorial hell.
The hard part to remember is that the only way to learn is to make mistakes and put yourself out there. If you don't, you'll stay in tutorial hell.
I occasionally use chat or claude to explain or as I call "give hints" to problems I am having. I always figured the ai plugins was kinda cheating, however, if it is like an industry standard practice i might look into it. Overall this is also super helpful.