How do you find projects to work on when learning a new language?
I have been learning C++/Elixir recently and I’ve made a distributed port scanner & and a streaming platform with Elixir (what an amazing language to work with) and some fun in C++ (also super cool to use).
I feel like I gained basic mastery of the languages, but I’ve been meaning to deepen my knowledge of them. However, I don’t know where to start now…
Can you give me ideas, open-source project that I could help, etc… ? Thanks!
Whenever I find myself wishing for a tool to do (whatever), I habitually add its description and distinguishing features to a list that I keep for this purpose.
Then, when I want to try a new language, I already have a list of project ideas.
Not every new language is a keeper for me, so the project I choose doesn't necessarily get finished in that language. That's okay, because the process still gives me the real-world experience to find what I like and dislike about the language. It also leads to improved design and faster development when I pick that project up again in some other language, because I'll have already explored the underlying issues.
Man. It must be nice not to be drowning in 30 unfinished projects with another 30 on your mind to start all the time.
Usually, if I learn a new language, it's because it seems like the right language for whatever project I'm wanting to undertake rather than "I want to learn a language; let's see if I can come up with a project to do in that language."