But im not sure how to apply it to anything realistic

I think that’s a misconception a lot of people have: unless you get a job in the field, or get into open source work, you probably won’t. Not at any amount of scale, anyway.

Like, you go to your computer and start working in…what?

For myself, I find that (outside of work and open source) I don’t really USE my programming skills, except that knowing programming enables me to think about problems in my life in a more analytical way. Every once in a while, I might be doing something tedious and techy that I’ll take an hour or two to automate. For example, I’ve done that for re-organizing and renaming video and music files. I also helped my wife a few hundred pages of text from a wiki she maintains for her D&D guild, when they were migrating to a new provider.

im just unsure what people do especially when starting out.

If you have an idea for something that you find interesting or are passionate about or would use personally, great! That’s extremely rare, so don’t stress about it. My go-to recommendation for starter projects is to just re-make something that already exists. That gives you very specific, achievable goals. Specifically" I recommend re-making “dir.exe” or “ls” (the Linux equivalent), which are command-line programs that list files on your computer.

If you can work a project like that, even if you never “finish” it, and you get any enjoyment out of it, that’s a good sign. If you find that you dread working on it, or really struggle with it, then that’s a good indicator that maybe programming isn’t for you. It’s a useful skill to have, but you shouldn’t feel bad if it just isn’t your thing. I always like the idea of being a musician, and toon guitar lessons as a kid, but whenever I would sit down to practice, I found I would rather be doing almost anything else. Eventually, it occurred to me that I can love music and musicianship, without being a musician.

What is really meant by “programming” when people say they like to use linux for it?

I think it’s just a matter of personal preference among the type of people that are drawn to programming. Linux doesn’t just LET you have a very high level of control over things that happen “under the hood”, it often MAKES you have to deal with some things that Windows or iOS would traditionally keep hidden (to varying degrees, depending on distro). That ends up being appealing to the kind of tinkerer folks who are also attracted to programming.

I don’t think there’s any inherent reason that Linux is better for programming, except MAYBE that there’s more of a programming ecosystem built around it, because more programmers end up using it. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Interesting that several people are reporting using “you” for negative sentiments, because I use “I” for those as well. E.G. “Well, I’m a fucking idiot.”

I’d say it depends on WHY you like the art. Does it tie into the toxic or reprehensible traits of the artist? Was the artist trying to send a toxic or reprehensible message with this art?

If not, then it’s just a matter of ensuring that your enjoyment of the art doesn’t translate into support for the artist. Or, at least, that it doesn’t cross your personal line of support for the artist.

So, for example, does the Kanye music you like have nazi themes or messaging? Far as I’m aware, no, the nazi-ism is just his newest shit, so you’re probably fine as long as you’re not streaming from Spotify or YouTube, or otherwise giving him revenue.