No, they didn't do the modern day ceremonies around programming such as TDD. What they did was code a lot. Code a lot of different things, knew where to draw the line and "finish" up their projects. Maybe out of their many projects, they really took one or two all the way and polished, but most were fast, done and the lessons learned. ... They also stayed deep in the language and didn't rely much on frameworks & libraries.
Here's a sample of things you can do to vary your programming knowledge fast.
Learn multiple languages C, asm, forth, lisp, prolog, any OOP
Code a card game, blackjack, cribbage, poker
Code a board game, checkers
Code a puzzle game, tetris
Code an adventure game (text)
Code your own text editor
Code your own interpreter (BASIC or your own language)
Code a network server & client (not REST, socket programming & threads)
Code a basic CRUD app
They are deeply curious about a lot of things and soak up as much as they can, that's all I can say.
I like your notes on varying programming languages yet staying deep in one. I think this is turning into a consensus among the folks here who've been kindly offering advice.
And will consider this: "Maybe out of their many projects, they really took one or two all the way and polished, but most were fast, done and the lessons learned. ... They also stayed deep in the language and didn't rely much on frameworks & libraries."
This is also useful: "Code your own text editor Code your own interpreter". I find these types of things intrinsically motivating, thank you.
Here's a sample of things you can do to vary your programming knowledge fast.
Learn multiple languages C, asm, forth, lisp, prolog, any OOP
Code a card game, blackjack, cribbage, poker Code a board game, checkers Code a puzzle game, tetris Code an adventure game (text) Code your own text editor Code your own interpreter (BASIC or your own language) Code a network server & client (not REST, socket programming & threads) Code a basic CRUD app
They are deeply curious about a lot of things and soak up as much as they can, that's all I can say.