But how does one get ideas for a project? I started learning programming using C++ about 5 months ago. I've been making good progress on learning the concepts but I just can't think of anything useful to create.
Do you do anything? Like, anything at all besides learn C++? Do you know anyone else who does things? Think about what parts of those things are suboptimal and create something to make it better.
For example, where I work, we get a lot of user-submitted content, but we can't use all of it. So we need to filter. The lady who is primarily responsible for this simply doesn't have the time to vet the massive number of images she runs across to make sure they meet some basic criteria for size and quality, so I wrote a program that mostly automates it.
I'm sure you study, research, write, socialize, etc. in addition to learning C++. If not, I recommend starting. Those are all way more important than C++.
And like I said, it doesn't need to be your pain that you're relieving. Look at the people around you — even if you yourself are chained into your bed with no hope of escape, I bet you know people who do things. You can help them do those things.
For example, take a look at patio11 on this site. He's built a whole business out of a simple tool he wrote in a few hours to help a teacher make bingo cards for her students, because making bingo cards is such a soul-sucking waste of time when humans do it. (To be clear, he's put a lot more time than that into building the program and the business over the years. But it only took a few hours of coding to solve the problem.)
Yeah. It's a good way to come up with a concrete idea, and it has the benefit of, y'know, actually helping people. (And helping people sometimes has the benefit of turning into paying work in the future.)
For example, where I work, we get a lot of user-submitted content, but we can't use all of it. So we need to filter. The lady who is primarily responsible for this simply doesn't have the time to vet the massive number of images she runs across to make sure they meet some basic criteria for size and quality, so I wrote a program that mostly automates it.