| Start. Jump in head first. Before you're ready. I made my first video game when I was 13 years old. I made it because I wanted to make something for a girl I liked. I used Macromedia Flash, learned as I went along, and never lost site of the goal. I had to impress this girl. Sometimes we are inspired by technology to do things. The reason an engineer might give to building something bizarre: "I'm building this because I can." I think it's better to have the goal in mind first, though of course we may only think of solutions to problems because we also understand the tools we have available to us. It's easy to solve a problem with programming once you know what problem you want to solve. I don't think anything great is made when you try to come up with a product based purely on technology. It's great that you learned JavaScript, I happen to think programming is a blast! And learning new tools, languages, frameworks, or paradigms are always great for the left side of my brain. But programming has always been the most fun, most rewarding, and easiest when I'm deep into solving a problem. The "how" is straightforward: you Google the error message, you Google the 'how to perform X function with Y language on Z platform', you ask friends and family to test and break your likely fragile baby, you build a business, et cetera. Try to solve an issue you have. Try to solve someone else's issue. Try to solve an issue many people have. Or, browse GitHub.com, and work on another person's solution. Did the girl I made that game for ever go out with me? No. But it didn't matter. I got started. |