How do you get better at programming?

Being a better coder means being a better thinker. It means being logical. It means using your time wisely. It means you think through your problems before you tackle them on. The thinking comes first, the typing second.

PROGRAMMING SOCKS

shitposting on other programmers, with programs.

You don't. Nobody is actually "good" at programming. Everyone who says otherwise is lying.

Pick some projects to tinker on. Always have a few small little things to experiment on, even if you're not going to ship it (these could be work projects too).

Write a bunch of code. Pretend that you're the user for your own software. Experiment with languages. Find yourself becoming more curious about the inner workings of a specific language.

Post your code online, so others can look at it and call you a retard, but you'll learn HUGE amounts from people's input, especially if they are actually good devs.

Then try help other people too, makes you think about not only how to program but how to also explain it.

since everyone posting here says to write more code, here's something for contrast: read code other people have written. read literature on programming. find blogs written by competent people and read those. contribute to open source software. writing programs in a vacuum only gets you so far.

tedunangst.com/flak/
drewdevault.com/

Come up with a project, so some interesting webapp or a cli app etc. And then just learn what you need to get it done.

Practice solving problems
Write an editor
Write an emulator
Write a compiler
Write an OS complete with GUI, browser and temple

Having autism.

This. The thing that really got me into programming was the idea of building everything myself. Using your own editor to write your own compiler for your own OS is a godly experience.

Write shit.
Then re-write with autism.

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Not OP but I'm literally programming the most straightforward things to get better, like printing values, doing random dice rolls, making imaginary smart coffee machines... You have to start somewhere.

I'm hoping to progress on to more difficult programming challenges at some stage; is there any particular timeframe this should take? Or does it vary from person to person?

By wearing programming socks, duh.

Forgot to add, in Java. Again, have to start somewhere.

why should I listen to meanies?

Because nice people will tell you that you're doing a good job, even when you aren't

And that will never make you better. And they don't specifically have to be mean anyway.

Try new things, have fun, take chances, make mistakes, get messy!

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I'm in the same boat, its hard to make these giant leaps, I'm losing hope.

also newfag question here but how do people post their code here within that large whitespace? Is there a website that you paste your code into to do this?

Hang in there man. I'm not the greatest in the world at mathematics but we'll get there. I hope to move on to harder things once I've mastered everything I can in my two years of studying.

I'm going on ahead and learning more in my own time with self-studying, even going back and revising old basics just so that they're normal constructs in my mind by reflex and not having to work out what bracket goes here and what case sensitive object goes there.

Rollerblades.

Excercise is good for you user, and you can rock out to the Hackers Soundtrack while doing it.

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SICP.

Learn a functional language (Erlang) and use what you learn there to implement better solutions in other programming languages. Under no circumstances use COBOL. Thirdly, get better at math and READ BOOKS written by Turing award laureates, as well as their research papers. You will learn a shit ton. Remember, you are not just a programmer you should ideally be a software ENGINEER or a computer SCIENTIST. A coder is just a codemonkey who does the dirty work for the people above.

Practice. Create algorithms that translate into real world aplications, make your version of apps that you see around.

read algorithm textbooks

by not being a brainlet and taking on projects much harder than you can handle ATM.

fucking baaaased

>Learn a functional language (Erlang) and use what you learn there to implement better solutions in other programming languages
why dont you just learn the language you're actually using you pretentious fuck

junior high schoolers can do loops and conditionals. you need to study algorithms, math and physics in order to write good code. it's not about data stores and networking.

>physics
wut

i want to learn algorithms but i'm a brainlet, what's the best book for me?

Lesson #1: Don't learn from here.

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fucking this

DSA for data structures and sorting. Go to YouTube for complexity theory cuz that shit is for autists

>I'm bad so everyone is

I cut my dick partly.

ty

Realize that programming is just transformation of data.
Learn how to use common data-structures effectively for that purpose.
Get a good taste by studying nice code (for example plan9)