Application of Programming

Hello everyone,

I am attempting to teach myself programming and am at a bit of a loss as to who to apply any of what I am learning. I read through books and they teach the theory of the code, but I fail to grasp its actual application. I would like to code professionally but I have no concept of what it actually entails.

I am a "hands on" type of learner and come to you all looking for some guidance as to how to develop into a diverse and skilled programmer. Any advice or resources would be greatly appreciated.

Will -pedantic fuck my with my initialized structs?

I have something like

typedef struct item {int prop1; float prop2} stuff;
stuff items[2];
items[0] = (stuff) {5, 4.5};
items[1] = (stuff) {4, 3.2};
and I'm not using -pedantic because I don't know if initializing structs like that is a stupid GCC extension.