In my city, the programming unemployment rate is, like, 2%. If you haven't worked for awhile, it's because of your job hunting skills, not your tech stack. So, if having a job is reason you ask this, my answer is: read some books about job hunting. Don't worry about programming right now.
But, and I think, more importantly, you are taking this way too seriously. Programming is fun. Write something fun. Me? I think NodeJS and VueJS are fun. Write a node app that draws ascii images in your terminal. Or, figure out how to store stuff in a database (Mongo is also fun). Wire up a VueJS app that accesses it. (Then throw it all out. Your first is never good enough to keep.)
OR, go to Glitch.com and party around there. It's a very sociable place to do some coding and engage with other people who want to program. Lots of ideas there. You can pick up Node apps and extend them. That's a lot of fun.
OR, do CodeWars.com. Pick your favorite language and do some exercises. If you aren't inspired after a week of doing that, find another profession. You're not a programmer.
OR, read GitHub. As before, if you aren't inspired after a week concentrating on the cool things other people do, forget about programming, it's not in your blood.
But you will. Programming is the most fun you can have. It has all the ingredients. Always new. Good results. Fun community. You can do it alone and sitting down.
I don't agree with this advice. Why do I need to be inspired by what people are already doing? Someone is already doing that. We don't need more. Fred Rogers said "I went into television because I hated it so". I can't think of a better reason to enter a field.
Pick your favorite language and do some exercises. If you aren't inspired after a week of doing that, create your own language! All of the languages we have today still suck.
Read GitHub. If you aren't inspired after a week concentrating on the things other people do, pick something more worthwhile! Those things are only being done because someone chose to do them. They have no more right to direct the future of computation than you or anyone else.
Give me more programmers who didn't get here by the traditional path. I want the next generation of software from people like Alan Kay, Larry Wall, Bill Atkinson, and Tim Berners-Lee.
> In my city, the programming unemployment rate is, like, 2%. If you haven't worked for awhile, it's because of your job hunting skills, not your tech stack.
No, it is not due to job hunting skills. It's more like "culture fit" and other types of discrimination.
A few years ago I wrote a Python script that took a TSV tile as input and randomly selected a secret Santa matchup that wouldn’t put partners together and then email them their matches with a backup to a file so nobody would know the matches. I could find out, but didn’t have to know the list to get everyone set up.
It’s been a ton of fun improving on that year over year, and it was a great learning experience.
It definitely doesn’t have to be a serious endeavour.
That said, initiating an open source library that fills a previously unfilled need is also a great learning experience. Plus, other people get to see and critique your code in public—it makes you give some things a second thought.
But, and I think, more importantly, you are taking this way too seriously. Programming is fun. Write something fun. Me? I think NodeJS and VueJS are fun. Write a node app that draws ascii images in your terminal. Or, figure out how to store stuff in a database (Mongo is also fun). Wire up a VueJS app that accesses it. (Then throw it all out. Your first is never good enough to keep.)
OR, go to Glitch.com and party around there. It's a very sociable place to do some coding and engage with other people who want to program. Lots of ideas there. You can pick up Node apps and extend them. That's a lot of fun.
OR, do CodeWars.com. Pick your favorite language and do some exercises. If you aren't inspired after a week of doing that, find another profession. You're not a programmer.
OR, read GitHub. As before, if you aren't inspired after a week concentrating on the cool things other people do, forget about programming, it's not in your blood.
But you will. Programming is the most fun you can have. It has all the ingredients. Always new. Good results. Fun community. You can do it alone and sitting down.
And relax.