A Programming Projet For Beginners

Over the last few months I have spoken with a number of people who are starting with computer programming and one of the first question they ask is, “What project should I work on?”

One answer is a poker game.

Why a poker game?

• It’s a very well understood problem.
• Most people know how poker works and if you don’t know the rules you can easly look it up.
• There is no undefined or unexpected part of the problem.
• You don’t need any special data structors.
• All you need is a few arrays, a few loops and some if/then logic.
• You don’t need lots of fancy graphics.
• The first version can just be a text interface.
• It’s a simple problem that can be extended in many ways.

Start with just a basic game, add graphics, add AI for computer based player, add networking for multi player support, add music or sound effects.