How to become a programmer?

Question

C++ / C#

Guys, hello!! Always dreamed of being a programmer! A long time ago I received a programmer diploma at the end of one course. Studied Delphi, Pascal, Visual FoxPro and other languages. Then he successfully joined the army and forgot everything. The fundamental, of course, remained. I am 35 years old. In 3 years I plan to quit my real job and finally become a programmer. By the nature of my activity, I came across superficially with SQL Server and computer network administration. So I have some database management skills. I can make requests.
I've been learning C# for over a year now. I study with the help of Youtube and books. I understand the basics. But I feel that I lack application programming. It is necessary to abandon training a little and everything is forgotten.
So guys, I'm asking for advice. How to improve your knowledge? Maybe complete an online course? What resources to read with tasks to increase the complexity? Maybe you can train somewhere?

Answer 1

In any way in which there will be some kind of long-term project.
Either you need to invent it yourself, or ask around your friends, maybe someone needs to automate something.
Own knowledge base, an application for accounting for finances, a telegram bot, anything complex will do, the main thing is to get some kind of product in the end.
Or find an internship / part-time job / freelance of some kind.
Without a project, all the tasks will flow into the sand. The course, in principle, is also possible if it is carried out through some kind of project.