What advice would you give for developing practical skills for a novice programmer?

Question

IT education

Hello. I recently started my journey in learning programming (I'm currently reading the book "OOP C ++ by R. Laforet" and solving problems after the chapters) and then I have a question, but just to develop practical skills? I heard such an opinion that you need to start with small pet projects and experiment with examples in the book, but you should not use such resources as CodeForces, as this is a sport. programming, but it is not very necessary for a proger, what do you think about this opinion?

Answer 1

Both opinions are absolutely correct.
I'm for pet. Think about what you are missing now and write it down. Some small service, something for yourself, cover it with UI, improve the algorithm using examples from books.

Answer 2

How about developing practical skills?

Practice. Write code.
It was in order to write code that it was interesting that there was motivation and it is recommended to start pet projects. That is, projects that are of personal interest to you. Someone automates a communal apartment, someone has their own schedule with reminders, someone writes toys.