How to Practice Programming

Using Online Resources

1. 
   Learn from open-source software projects. Start by searching online for various open-source projects and just reading their code to learn how different frameworks work. Start contributing to open-source projects or create your own once you have learned how other open-source projects are built.^{[1] X Research source}

   1. Open source projects are projects where the code is completely open to the public to view. They are typically community-based and accept help from other programmers.
   2. For example, if you want to learn how the Rails framework works, look for Rails open source projects on GitHub and study the code to see how different programmers implement different features.
2. 
   Take online courses to improve your knowledge and learn new techniques. Search for cheap or free online programming courses on sites like Udemy or Coursera or look for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Sign up and take the courses to brush up on your programming skills.^{[2] X Research source}

   1. Courses like these are a great way to practice techniques that you want to work on at your own pace. You can also get helpful tips and feedback from teachers and other students.
   2. You can find MOOCs here: https://www.mooc.org/.
3. 
   Solve coding challenges and puzzles on different sites to practice. Search for coding challenge websites and find some that appeal to you. Attempt a variety of challenges to practice editing code to solve problems and improve your programming techniques.^{[3] X Research source}

   1. There are many different styles of coding challenge websites. Some only offer individual challenges, while others offer competitive or team-based challenges. Some provide online code editors that you can edit the code indirectly, whereas some require you to write solutions on your own computer and then provide it to the website.
   2. Some examples of top code challenge websites are HackerRank, TopCoder, Coderbyte, Project Euler, CodeChef, Codewars, and CodinGame.

   Tip: You can also find programming challenges on the DailyProgrammer Subreddit on Reddit here: http://www.reddit.com/r/dailyprogrammer. There are 3 programming challenges posted weekly, and the community then reviews solutions and provides feedback.^{[4] X Research source}

4. 
   Do code kata exercises to learn by repetition. Visit the CodeKata website and create code based around the requirements for different kata exercises. Do each exercise repeatedly, improving the code each time, to improve your programming techniques.^{[5] X Research source}

   1. The term code kata comes from the Japanese concept of a kata in martial arts, which is an exercise you repeat over and over again, continuously improving as you go. Code katas apply this concept to programming by providing small exercises designed to take 30-60 minutes that are meant to be repeated.
   2. Some code katas don't even require any coding, but they will help you practice skills that are fundamental to programming, such as experimental modeling.
   3. You can also find some katas on coding challenge websites, such as Codewars, which you can visit here: https://www.codewars.com/.