Re: Idea Generation for New Programmer

[Hero Zzyzzx]

I'm in a similar boat: new (a few months) to perl, but loving it. I've focused my learning around CGI and web database programming. I guess I'm fortunate that I have way too many good ideas and not enough experience (yet) or time to enact them.

My ideas actually come from all over- family (my brother deals coins and is having me put his inventory management online, integrated with his website), myself (mostly for my personal site- photo albums, link list (ouch. . .)), and work.

Another big source of ideas is other sites- seeing what they do with CGI and then going from there.

I'd say keep programming, learning, and improving no matter where the ideas come from, whether work or personal. It's not wasted time when you're learning perl. You may not feel you're making "useful" stuff, but what you're doing is setting yourself up to be ready when something good (an idea, a job, a freelance offer) does come along. Investing in your skills will always pay off, if only personally.