What exactly to program.

[baumgc]

I find myself unable to come up with anything to program. Between my assignments I don't do anything!

Is there a place with some random "practice assignments." I could do for myself. (C++)

[Vadi]

Check out brainstorm.ubuntu.com. There are thousands of ideas now there. Or help out an open-source project in something.

[lnostdal]

http://www.spoj.pl/
http://projecteuler.net/
http://www.topcoder.com/

[slavik]

http://icpcres.ecs.baylor.edu/onlinejudge/

[themusicwave]

I run into this writer's block sometimes too.

You want to code, but you have no ideas at the moment. Having coded all day for work or school usually makes the problem worse.

Usually I find inspiration through necessity. I'll need to do something so I'll write a program to solve it. Often this is a task I could do manually, but write a script for instead(because I hate tedious manual tasks and coding is fun) like renaming all my music files or something.

Other times I just get hit with a "Wouldn't it be cool to..." idea.

Sometimes the idea just has to come to you, you see a short coming in an existing program and can fix it or make a better one. You need to perform some task that could be done programatically.

So just relax and the idea will come. As others said till then there are always open source projects.

[baumgc]

I run into this writer's block sometimes too.

You want to code, but you have no ideas at the moment. Having coded all day for work or school usually makes the problem worse.

Usually I find inspiration through necessity. I'll need to do something so I'll write a program to solve it. Often this is a task I could do manually, but write a script for instead(because I hate tedious manual tasks and coding is fun) like renaming all my music files or something.

Other times I just get hit with a "Wouldn't it be cool to..." idea.

Sometimes the idea just has to come to you, you see a short coming in an existing program and can fix it or make a better one. You need to perform some task that could be done programatically.

So just relax and the idea will come. As others said till then there are always open source projects.

Well that's just it. I -don't- code all day at school. I only code maybe twice a month for my assignments (makes me feel all rusty when I boot up Xcode).
I have a few "Wouldn't it cool to..." ideas, but I don't have the experience to implement the idea. As of now, I just write these ideas down and possible implementations. When I get better, I'll come back and give it a whirl.

[Acglaphotis]

http://www.spoj.pl/
http://projecteuler.net/
http://www.topcoder.com/
Project euler is awesome.

[LaRoza]

I don't know your learning style, but you could study something independantly.

Find something that piques your interest, and go with it. (See my wiki for possible languages)

[mssever]

Well that's just it. I -don't- code all day at school. I only code maybe twice a month for my assignments (makes me feel all rusty when I boot up Xcode).
I have a few "Wouldn't it cool to..." ideas, but I don't have the experience to implement the idea. As of now, I just write these ideas down and possible implementations. When I get better, I'll come back and give it a whirl.

I started by noticing that I performed a task frequently, and writing a bash script to automate it. For example, after doing a cd, I usually do an ls. So, I wrote a little bash function that automatically does an ls after a cd. (There's an interesting little gotcha there to explore.) Or, for different ways of listing files, I have an alias called ll that runs ls -l. Then, inspired by RedHat, I wanted a shortcut called l. that would only list the dotfiles. Turns out that a simple alias doesn't quite cut it; a function does nicely. If you don't already use the command line extensively, start doing so, and you'll quickly discover things you can do. Nowadays, if I sit down at another system, I try to bring my aliases and functions along, because they're so handy.