I love programming languages and trying to think of logical solutions to problems. A lot I have been reading on C# and the underworkings of WPF. (Also Python and PyQt) In all my college courses in programming, I learn absolutely nothing (What a variable is, what an array is, NOT what stack and heap are, NOT what CLR/JVM actually does) I feel I have a very good grasp on the basics and a decent grasp on the more substantial topics.
I have been trying to make my own C#/WPF app that is governed by input sensors and output relays for home/shop automation.
I am having trouble to just do certain things. For example. make a user control to be used by a central control that also controls another user control while having a database layer.
I would really like to learn how to structure logically programs and what best design is (for example, I hate having a program filled with if/else statements). The problem is, the books I find only have basic examples that don’t really deepen my overall undestanding of how all the pieces need to work together.
You find an open-source (or at least “source available at no cost” — not quite the same thing, but the difference should only matter if you plan to redistribute your results) project that does “something like” (maybe “vaguely” like;-) what you’re trying to do, and is coded in a language that you know or want to learn.
You duplicate the source tree for that project to your machine and put the duplicate under a version control system (
svn,hg,git,bazaar— whatever — there’s a bazillion good, free ones) quite independendently from any VCS it might have been in originally — the point is being able to save your edits all the time, and revert them easily if and when you make mistakes.Then you start hacking, looking things up in docs and forums, asking on SO, etc, as needed;-).