Overcoming Barriers

Question

I'm sure once in a while we may have come across a problem too frustrating to solve that we'd consult someone else for a solution. It's a feeling I became all too familiar with in my first CS course and it's led to a lot of doubt as to whether I have the aptitude for this thing. What I really want to ask is what can I do, aside from reviewing syntax, to learn how to write better algorithms and readily solve harder and harder problems without just aimlessly practicing questions out of my C++ textbook. Any insight is appreciated.

Answer 1

Build things.

Have you ever wondered how an mp3 file comes out as sound? Try to program a song.

Or an image, bmp is a pretty simple format.

C++ is pretty low-level, why not build an operating system, or at least a program that can run without windows in the background?

You can actually manually connect to a mailserver and then type in SMTP commands by hand with your keyboard to send an email. I'm sure you could automate that in C++.

etc. Books are important but theres a lot more fun to be had when tackling real life problems!