How complex should a C++ junior's pet project be?

Question

Career in IT

Once upon a time I thought that the number of projects is more important than their quality, but after looking at my profile on the github, which is full of stubs from such pseudo-projects, I felt ashamed and went through to delete them all. It was difficult to call it anything at all, since neither the code, nor the scale, nor even the banal design of the README suited me there. The understanding began to come that it is still better to take on one major task, spend a conditional six months on it, but it will look like a finished product that can even be used.

An inappropriate description of the project.

В итоге уже несколько недель работаю над десктоп-приложением, которым бы я пользовался лично я, с функциями под себя. Фреймворк Qt, а приложение по концепции достаточно простое и походит на Trello, но с ориентацией на одного человека. Я бы описал его как "Заметки с организацией как у Trello", для больших возможностей будет и синхронизация между устройствами (пока есть только сохранение в БД с авторизацией), и рисование мышкой прямо на полотне заметки, больше бордов для управления проектами и кучу ещё всяких идей, на которые уйдёт более 6 месяцев, как мне кажется.

But how to understand what is weak for the position of a junior, and what is "just right"? Are these specific projects written using frameworks/libraries or are they just puzzles from books? Should it be a demo or a complete product?

Answer 1

There is such a thing as a poser, and now you are trying to become one. Pit projects, by definition, are what you like,
so write what you are interested in and show off with code styles or super highload you will beat at work, unless, of course, managers pay

Answer 2

They do not expect anything from Jun, because. this is jun. No need to be ashamed of your old code, you can always say that now you don’t do it that way and you gain experience.

Answer 3

Why a desktop app? Synchronization with the database, some kind of interface. When I just started programming, I also thought HOW tired this console was, I really wanted to write something with a graphical interface, and I thought that it was just incredibly difficult, because I had no idea how it was done. Then the understanding came that it is no more difficult and no more interesting than form-slapping on the web.
If you want to write something for github, then the majority of people who might stumble upon your project are other programmers, not users of desktop applications. You can write something small, but that others can use with convenience, a small library that solves some of your problems, or can be useful to others. Just when writing libraries, in my opinion, the rarest and deepest things in the language are used. In my opinion, a good knowledge of the foundation of the language is valued more than the ability to use the database and draw interfaces.

Answer 4

This is called fucking suffering.
You do not choose the complexity of the pet project, it chooses the act itself. The project essentially solves some kind of your task, most often it is some kind of automation of a routine in your life, or an improvement in the quality of some actions and at the same time there are no analogues of your pet. (Well or you're stupid and couldn't google them) It's
better to make ten useful micropets than to write an analogue of trello, which has already been written a hundred times and each of the analogues has all your functionality and a hundred times more other functionality.