People learn to program for many reasons . Some have to satisfy a school requirement; others, want to pad their resume. Others…just want to learn how to make computers do stuff!

So, what’s the best way to learn to program? It’s a tough question to answer but one thing that you’ll hear over and over again from experienced programmers is that the

absolute best way to learn programming is  by creating some real product that has  a purpose or a use for you.

In other words, make something that you want to make, something that you want to use, or something that you yourself would find fun. Now, there are some limits here. Obviously, you cannot create something like Facebook as your first website or GTA as your first game .

So, you should find a good “beginner project” that is achievable. Once you have a goal, from there you can decide upon your programming language. Here, at Penjee, we’re a big fan of Python, but you should use whatever best suites your purpose-Java, PHP, ruby.

Our List of Beginner Programming Projects

 

Utility Projects

1.  Appointment app
2.  Schedule app
   • Many people have idiosyncratic schedules that don’t always mesh will with commercial schedule/calendar apps. So, make your own up.
3.  Personal Athletic app
   • IF you’re on any kind of athletic team, odds are that the schedule/calendar for it is..subpar. So, make a better one
4.  File Backup App
   • As a programmer you probably use git, but how about creating an app that allows you to copy folder/files and send them to a backup location on your PC. You can try to figure out how to make a new folder to house each backup and how to name the folder based on the current time stamp.
5.  File/folder encrypter
   • Learn how to encrypt files/folder using common algorithms (Bluefish) etc. Or, if you want to get fancy create your own bitwise shift based algorithm.

Game Projects

1. Create a HangMan game .

Difficulty level: medium

Here’s a pic of Hang Man game made using Java’s Scanner Classs, an array list, a loop and a switch statement.

2. Checkers

Difficulty level: easy / medium

We all know checkers.

. You can increase the difficulty and sophistication with the following enhancements

• supporting 2 person players
• CPU with varying levels of difficulty and associated AI

 

3. Tic Tac Toe 

Difficulty level: medium

The difficulty/sophistication of this game can depend on how you structure it. If you know how to use 1-d arrays, then try using 2-d arrays to learn how they might be utilized in a game like this. You can increase the difficulty and sophistication with the following enhancements

• CPU with varying levels of difficulty and associated AI

 

 

Other Lists of Projects for Beginners

Reddit has a great list of Beginner programming projects here 

And, Quora has a good list here

Good luck!