My Favorite Computer Science Programming Project of All Time (how I broke the coding barrier)

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After going through some of my old computer science programming projects, I stumbled upon the one programming project that broke down the coding barrier for me. It changed everything. So, I decided I'd like to share it with y'all!
GitHub Repo: github.com/ForrestKnight/Wres...
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[@fknight]

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[@kevinvanniekerk2436]

Not only is he back, he's had the THOR hair change. Love it. Missed the channel bro.

[@coolrock3733]

As someone who hasn't yet broken my coding barrier, I do hope I get to someday. Good luck to aspiring programmers and CS students o7

[@jayman8001]

amen brotha 👍 let's keep pushing until that barrier breaks

[@NexGenration99]

you might not get one single barrier to break through. for me there were a couple small barriers far various different concepts in programming. i can point to various points of my programming journey where i finally understood object oriented programming and how to use classes effectively, or when i finally understood how to make meaningful functions that make the code easier to read and make the code easier to maintain in future iterations, and so on. so dont feel bad if you dont break through some large coding barrier because before you know it, youll look back and realize youve already broken through a couple smaller ones

[@zavala1360]

How long have you been studying?

[@coolrock3733]

@@zavala1360 quite a while now. I wouldn't say I'm at a zero but I just can't call myself confident or practical enough yet.

[@jpeg1547]

Glad to have you back Forrest. I was just binge-watching a bunch of your recent videos.

[@Chewy21414]

This was so much fun to watch. I have two more classes before my capstone project maybe after I graduate and have more time I will try to build this project. Thank you for sharing.

[@tylerhoyt9950]

This was cool to look at, currently in CS2 we are making a music storage program but we are only allowed to use smart pointers. It's been quite challenging.

[@ligma3852]

That wrestling project is so badass! I wrestled in HS and its awesome to see people show the sport some love! I think I might try to make a wrestling sort of CS project over the summer due to this!

[@Jorsten]

He's risen from the dead. I wonder if he could do an open source cyber security degree like he did for computer science.

[@isayapere5631]

OMG, haha he is risen with now a new haircut

[@MrHhkjhkj]

I really like this idea! Im a new web dev and would love to dip my toes a bit into cyber security

[@TomDoesTech]

I love how relaxed Forest is as he records these videos. He makes it look easy but it's actually a difficult skill to master.

[@biccyboy]

Ah dude you're spot on with the 'breaking down the coding barrier'. Just one thing, one exercise can make the elusive fog of the black box of a particular concept/programming lift. The relief is like a sudden rush of tranquility and peace, like releasing the floodgates on a dam. I remember for me, 'programming' as a whole suddenly clicked and made sense when I was about 2/3's of the way through K&R C and had just gotten to covering computer architecture and pointers/memory management. Suddenly, the fog lifted, and it all made sense. The excitement for the learning process is palpable. It never stops either, you keep learning and learning and building up a more comprehensive understanding of the realms of computing and data. I'm so glad I saved all my old projects, it's fun to go back and revisit it all. Fun video!

[@cossco8081]

Compilers has made every university project I have done a little more interesting. Even LeetCode like problems we solved in labs freshman year seem so much fun compared to writing a semantic analyzer for a compiler. All in all though, my favorite by far has been my relational database class project. Setting up a good backend is always a good feeling and satisfies the OCD within me.

[@RJ-gh3lg]

We missed you Forrest, glad you're back

[@ITZollx]

Good to see you back man!

[@kraljict]

My favorite project to this day (I am no longer a dev) was an application using SDL2 and C++ and it creates a simulation of the Quantum Mechanical Model of the Atom decided by Dr. Erwin Schrödinger. It was all bit manipulation of pixels and it was super cool!

[@ThatGuyDownInThe]

that is SO COOOOOOOOL, I am jealous haha, hope to be there soon enough

[@SupremeExploits]

​@Anurag Chakraborty c++ library for making games

[@QuantumQuibbles]

Oh my! As a physicist by training with a newfound interest in programming, I would love to be able to create something like this!

[@renatatostada3318]

I remember the project that broke the coding barrier for me. I didn't even know this was a concept, but I still know exactly what you're talking about for me. It was a program that was meant to take input from a bunch of classic literature texts. It would use context clues to determine how similar words were, using something I never heard of called "Cosine Similarity." I'm not the greatest math person, so the complicated formula really intimidated me. But when I got to work to implementing it, it was so cool to figure out how to use something I had no prior experience with and apply it at the same time. That was the one skill missing from my toolkit, and then after that, everything just started to make sense and fall into place. And the icing on the cake for me was the validation that it was good code, too! I got to see a few of my classmates' implementations because that was another thing: I finished when most people were still struggling with the first steps. My code ran at least 2x as fast as any one else's. I was so proud of myself, and that's when I really knew I loved programing

[@Andrumen01]

Hey!!! You're back! I was wondering when you would be back. Glad to see you back.

[@Imaltont]

What made things go from random instructions that made things happened that I kind of just memorized to understanding what happened and better apply it in general and over many different programming languages was probably while reading "Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming" by van Roy and Haridi during a course at University. I still love this book long after, and it was a real eye opener of how programming works and opened up many different ways of thinking about things/problemsolving. I have seen similar experiences by people reading SICP as well, so that would also be an option for anyone looking for great general programming books to learn from.

[@HealthInspectorz]

I believe that once you see the patterns across all programming languages, the knowledge and skills you've honed will translate and it will make learning programming languages easier. It's all a matter of developing good programming habits and picking up new techniques. This semester, I learned a lot about object oriented programming and I worked with two programming languages.

[@jessr1698]

2 vids in 1 week after a 2 month break. Awesome!

[@RayfuzuLearning]

Very entertaining. I love going back and looking at old code. 😁😊

[@user-vr8bq8eb2w]

If my programming career was a marathon, I feel like this video just helped me progress through at least like 5 miles of important concepts. Thanks so much

[@MrChris20912]

Hah! This looks like a lot of fun. As a HS wrestler many years ago, it's surprising to see a code challenge about something I've done. Will have to give this one a try. Thanks for sharing!

[@michaelmurr13]

The project that truly broke my coding barrier is a twitter clone that I'm workimg on right now. Its written in React, NodeJS, Express amd MongoDB. Its basically a full blown MERN stack project that already taught me a ton

[@nq2c]

How did you start getting to it, have you already got experience in all of these and you wanted to put it together, or did you follow a tutorial or something else?

[@shu3684]

@@nq2c probably did it with a youtube tutorial

[@arkaprabha.chakraborty]

Finally, you are back!

[@shrek942]

You are so good at coding i hope i can be as good as you one day

[@stephendelacruzone]

Pretty neat of showcasing to your Professor your... fundamental principles and concepts of programming thru C++. A wrestling tournament scoring app. Kinda weird idea for a project but... it was good way to showcase what you learned. Yeah... pretty much all fundamental concept in all programming language are nearly the same. You got all of it showcased so good on ya'... ✨👍

[@teddyverdecia4855]

Hey can you link that project assignment doc somewhere in the description I’ve been looking for a good oop project to get familiar with oop and this looks perfect! Love the vid thanks bro.

[@fknight]

Yea check the GitHub repo. Everything should be in the requirements folder

[@seaweedglob]

The shorter the hair the longer the code

[@loganishere4760]

I’ve been looking for projects to sharpen my skills, I think I might do this.

[@inmyheadnick]

Hey! I saw this program and I think I'm going to give it a try myself! I'm currently in an introductory class for Java in my 2nd year of college. I'm in community college as of right now but I am transferring this fall and programming is a huge barrier for me. I understand the concepts, but putting them all together to develop a program from scratch has been quite the predicament! I'll give this a try and see how it goes!

[@NerdyDude186]

I love how you have a video called the end of the channel as we know it. Then in the next video you got a haircut 🤣🤣 that's hilarious to me

[@marcuslorenzo9705]

Thanks for this man! I'm currently studying Javascript and have the lofty goal of making an in-browser MMA sim...but it may have to start with boxing to limit the complication. I'd love it to take user input ratings and use them to influence skills and intangible elements of a boxing match. Imagine the knockout!😂

[@frontoge582]

Good ol professor Morris projects go crazy fr

[@onlygaming4630]

You are back greattttttt

[@robkennard6796]

No way that’s a K-Coast hoodie you’re wearing.. that’s my local surf shop here in Ocean City, MD 😎

[@hhhjhhj4897]

Two of my favorite things to learn. Wrestling and coding.

[@Akinsa2023]

Started advanced coding in high school and soon to college next year. What advise would you give for do coding in college?

[@seancoaker3613]

Welcome back king!

[@mihalachebogdan1]

Man im glad i found your channel hahah

[@ruiuniver4]

what vscode color scheme are u using?

[@retzerbil867]

Doing java programming 2 right now. Feeling kinda lost since it's been more than a year since my last java course. Hope I get back into it soon and even better than before

[@tyrellepatton2243]

I have a project that I would like to start and believe it will be a great idea but I don’t know how to code and don’t know how to find someone. Could you make a video on finding co-founders/partners

[@Ragna_E]

Does anyone know where can I find the answers for 25.1.4 list of place to travels 25.1.5 list of event numbers 25.2.4 top websites 25.3.4 practice push and pop?

[@frankqiang6318]

Still relatively new to computer science, but I think the Comp struct is basically just like a function pointer that compares two Wrestlers (like an operator

[@GTLugo]

Haha, this is interesting to look at as a CS student currently attending that same university!

[@joshuasonnen5982]

Where'd you get that hoodie? Edit: The one from the start of the vid

[@TheRandomSpectator]

What text coloring theme is that for vscode? I really like that and might want to switch to it.

[@icyvolts]

How long did it take for you to get this comfortable writing code from scratch?

[@jounin8401]

wow, I'm taking that same course this semester!

[@alejandromustelier704]

VSCode Theme: Andromeda

[@baronhelmut2701]

Somebody able to tell me what color scheme this is ?

[@WalkerGibbons]

Honey come here, Forrest posted a video!

[@kidneybean5688]

The most assured (NOT cheapest) path to learn to program, imo, is to go to a big research university, and as soon as possible (first year for sure, get looking on day 1) try to find an on campus engineering job. It's possible that your first few weeks-months will be unpaid, but IME you'll get paid pretty soon. It'll be kinda weird, some weeks you'll log 0 hours, other weeks more like 10-20 (my university restricts going past 20), but you'll still get accustomed to SOME code base. If you want a really fast course, go embedded software. You'll often be the only software guy on your project, and while you will deal with hardware struggles (oh no! We ordered the wrong pcb!) you will know everything, learn everything yourself, fail yourself, diagnose errors yourself AND for your team (sometimes errors are hardware, not software!). Extra credit, go to a university with a co-op program. Sign up for that shit. If you have an on-campus job, you're a top pick. Boom, now you have 6mo-1y of full-time coding at a 1-2 good companies and 3-4 years of part-time coding experience coming out of undergrad. School will be easier as well, and if you decicate yourself you'll get high grades, for those of you who care ab grades.

[@jayman8001]

okay life coach 😂

[@lone3raser512]

This is great advice. Thank you!

[@basicallybrand]

What theme do you use?

[@killeraudiofile8094]

I assume this code was from early on in your academic career-- like freshman/soph year -- takes me back haha. I look at some of my old Java/C/Scala code from the start of college and wince now lol. Though some of it is not as bad as some legacy code I've worked with professionally.

[@AkashicLink]

hey, i have a question. im new to programming, and after reading through a couple of foundational programming books, i feel i have a deep enough understanding to begin focusing on a specific language, with the ultimate goal of graduating with a cis degree and becoming a full time programmer. would it be better for me to learn python simply because its the easiest to find a job. or do you think it would be ok for me to try and tackle something more advanced like rust, which has definitely peaked my interest. i cant seem to find an aswer though reading or others videos

[@sayeddileri3461]

I’m in the same position…yet I just went along with whatever I had. Take this chance and learn one thing at a time. Focus on it. Practice and eventually it’ll be second nature for you. However, define your goal. What do you want to do? Once you understand your motives, the tool you use to achieve your goal won’t matter as much as how well you understand programming concepts and patterns. I thought I was going to learn JavaScript and raved all day and night…. Guess what? I’m now learning C++. I hated the thought of going near c++ because I thought it was hard. JavaScript is now a nightmare to work with because that’s the nature of it. See how it works? It’s quite strange. Find your goal, gather your resources and tools and get comfortable because it will be a great and humbling journey. Rack up those projects too…that’s what’s gonna truely break the barriers.

[@handsanitizer2457]

Can you find an old program you wrote and rebuild it as you would write it now

[@kayepixate2625]

Stoked to try this... 🤔

[@jessicaflamenco6732]

Does what you learn in school apply a lot at the engineering job?

[@fuzexxkiller]

Why do you not like header files? I recently started using them and don't know too much.

[@ashtonbennett8655]

That crewneck is sick! Where could I get one?

[@Redyf]

What's your color theme on vs code?

[@GChief117]

I turned on the bell for every notification.

[@4MXW]

2:31 you did a little _Mcconaughey_ right there...

[@salimmouttaki4514]

what's your visual code theme ?

[@tinmancode]

fun have an integration or unit test that grades the completed project and anyone that wants to have it graded can run the test and submit their scores to a leader board

[@nirajkr5710]

Looking fresh

[@a_guy_in_orange7230]

In case you were wondering Morris is still using this as a project, as soon as you said Wrestling project I had whiplash then you said Morris and I just about screamed at 2am

[@codingwithculp]

Header files - I work with middle school students, sixth through eighth grade, and I teach them to code. We do a lot of stuff with autonomous robotics. The controller we use is pretty good, and for the past few years I have used Python, but the Python implementation on the controller is broken and has not been updated past Python 2.7. So this year it was back to using C. The good thing is, because of the libraries provided, unless the kids are doing something really advanced, I don't have to worry about teaching them pointers etc. However, breaking their programs into multiple files and teaching them about header files and includes tested the limits of my sanity.... It may seem simple and straightforward to us, but take a kid in sixth grade who is never coded before and his life.

[@nighter62]

Meanwhile we did next to 0 coding in my advanced data structures and algorithms class lmao.

[@cheezy6593]

Hes backk❤️❤️❤️

[@GeorgeTsiros]

so, basically, what the 90's turbo pascal user manuals explained in the first chapter?

[@oussamabelhout3174]

IT IS FUN MAN .. KEEP UP WITH THIS KIND OF VIDEOS . mamaiya

[@popaandrei4521]

What is the coding barrier exactly?

[@jasonharrison5877]

"all classes in 1 file lookin ahh code"... the funniest joke of all time.

[@DannyZolp]

I think my "click" program was a Java HTTP server written with basic Sockets

[@cattochi_]

Where can I get that NASA sweater?

[@tresaidh3y90]

I...actually miss coding in C++ I've been in the java environment too long i forgot what std was lol

[@deanmarques7452]

What vscode theme is that?

[@alejandromustelier704]

The best: Andromeda

[@albertayitey-adjin1387]

i have morris for CS 390. i heard that he's retiring soon unforntunately

[@MartyMcFly533]

Nasa do be running those calculations on Java now

[@theencryptedpartition4633]

Chego?

[@JC-jz6rx]

dude, forget the video, your cut is looking tiiight. I hope you gave the barb a tip

[@guilherme5094]

Jesus! Your hair! But glad you're back.

[@imadscientist]

Coding jesus forrest is back

[@mobeen3522]

Coding Jesus became coding Moses (in my mind Moses had short haircut 🤣)

[@track0812]

does the design plan work on enterprise project ?

[@fknight]

What do you mean?

[@track0812]

​@@fknight the questions that you have in the design plan like "What are the object?" does this type of questions apply to a project from a business world

[@jasonruff1270]

does anyone know how to define a variable in a function but give it scope outside that function?

[@urble]

i think you just gotta define it outside the function

[@jasonruff1270]

@@urble no no i need it inside the function because it's being redefined through a for loop but the for loop is in the function because i want to execute that function with a button but i need the variable to be accessible to other functions outside of it's own

[@iosefka7774]

that's contradictory. define it outside and pass it to the function.

[@tonyzippo1604]

Hey, I’m kinda confused on the whole “project based learning” approach to learn how to code. Can you make a video explaining in detail what it means to learn by working on a project and maybe some good beginner/ intermediate projects that are essential for displaying quality knowledge of the program language. Thx in advance!

[@xkroaxx]

Tbh just start something. There isn't any right project to start with. Just learn the basics and begin with whatever you want.

[@BigSexyIsHere]

Creating your own project forces you to learn the ins and outs. There are many different ideas if you just google project ideas.

[@diego032912]

I know people say that there are project ideas online, but think about yourself first. What simple task could you help yourself with if you made a program for it? Make sure it's simple, and then try to make it into reality. Project based learning is really just experience based learning but without saying that it's learning through experience. Coding is just simply one of those things you have to practice to improve at whether you have natural talent in it or not.

[@tymofiikoval1773]

I’ve literally come here only because of a ide theme. Can someone share the name of it?

[@vx319]

It might be andromeda

[@thejhoxx4336]

wich color theme is he using?

[@alejandromustelier704]

Andromeda

[@christopherhome8056]

Man I like that. You are ma man

[@praveendilruck1169]

Favorite❤

[@AllDay3004]

You went to ODU in Norfolk? Haha I went to NSU 🔰

[@jaredhorton6819]

Nice haircut man👍

[@fknight]

Thanks! 😁

[@user-jr2vc9ee5l]

Hey brother, weren't u using GNU/Linux ?

[@kevinkkirimii]

Love it

[@JoeCnNd]

Totally off subject but I do like that nasa shirt.

[@JDXNyt]

New programmer here. Why does he call Wrestler() before its initialized with its parameters? Wouldn't that throw a definition error? (7:15-7:28)

[@mattacarregui3934]

I’m not too familiar with C++, but it looks like he’s introducing a dictionary for the wrestler objects to be accessed in.

[@heebs]

That's a class constructor. You can define as many constructors as you want as long as the parameters are different.

[@talgy2671]

Are you from Poland?

[@Nathan-zc1qs]

The hair is on another lebron

[@jackthebear21]

1:47 I can relate