#Issue 28 - Mastering a Programming Language

Solve problems and build projects to grow your mastery in a language

Learning programming is best done by building things. Solving problems and making projects with it helps to learn faster and better. It shows you how to use the language in real situations. After you have learned some basics of the language, here are some problems and projects you can try. They will help you practice and understand the language more deeply.

Problems

1. Merge Overlapping Intervals

   This problem covers: Array manipulation, Sorting, Loops and conditionals

   Given an array of intervals, merge all overlapping intervals.
   
   Input: arr[] = {{1, 3}, {2, 4}, {6, 8}, {9, 10}}
   Output: {{1, 4}, {6, 8}, {9, 10}}

2. Roman to Integer

   This problem covers: String manipulation, Hash Table and Math.

   Roman numerals are represented by seven different symbols: I, V, X, L, C, D and M.
   Given a roman numeral, convert it to an integer.
   
   Input: s = "LVIII"
   Output: 58

3. Depth-First Search (DFS) on a Graph

   This problem covers: Graph representation (adjacency list or matrix), Recursion (or stack-based iteration), Backtracking

   Implement a function to perform DFS on a graph and find all paths between two vertices.

4. Implement a Binary Expression Tree Evaluator

   This problem covers: Binary Tree, Stack, Recursion

   Given a simple expression tree, consisting of basic binary operators i.e., + , – ,* and / and some integers, evaluate the expression tree.
            *
          /   \
         +     -
        / \   / \
       3   4 5   2 
   
   Input: s = ["3","4","+","5","2","-","*"]
   Output: 21

5. Implement LRU Cache

   This problem covers: Hash Table, Double Linked List, Memory Management

   Design and implement an LRU Cache with get and put operations in O(1) time

Projects

1. CRUD Application

   If you are learning languages like JavaScript or Pythong, try building a to do list app implementing REST APIs with Node.js or Django application. For languages like Java, C#, Go explore the GUI libraries and database, and see if you can build a similar application.

2. Build a music or image application

   Explore the image and music libraries of your programming language and build something that can handle media files.

3. Web Crawler

   Create a simple crawler that can visit web pages, extract specific information (like all links or images). This project will introduce you to concepts like HTTP requests, HTML parsing libraries, dealing with rate limiting and robots.txt files, and possibly basic data storage.

4. Make a simple game

   Creating a simple game like Tic-Tac-Toe, Snake, or a basic platformer. You will learn about game loops, user input handling, basic graphics or console output, and simple AI if implementing a computer opponent.

5. Task Scheduler

   Create a program that can schedule and execute tasks at specified intervals or times. This will help you process management, time handling, background processes and possibly file I/O for logging.

These problems and projects offer practical ways to learn and improve your programming skills. Pick one that interests you, start coding, and enjoy the learning process.

That’s it folks. Thanks for reading!

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