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It's summer time, and I feel the need to program something, I just can't come up with anything interesting (within my limits) to do. Can you give me some project recommendations to code? (not looking for project euler-like stuff or games to make) Anything that would force me to learn new stuff would be good I guess.
Have you taken a look at the Contest Board? They are quite a view ideas floating there. As for "within your limits", you should be looking for things which expand your limits and refine what you already now.
Another thing is simply look at the problems people here are having and see if you can come up with your own solution to them / see if you can figure out what is wrong. There isn't anything stopping you from contributing to answers; you may get informed if what you post is wrong however it is still a good learning experience. Just make sure to mind the homework policy.
What's wrong with games? I've gotten back into 'C' recently after a few years off, and have learned more making console games recently than anything else. It all depends on how far you want to take it. It can cover file I/O (save/load game), random numbers, structures (player info/stats) - it was making 2D ASCII "graphic" games that finally drove home my until-recently shaky knowledge of pointers!
Case in point: I started a "casino" game at work today and have already learned a few new tricks.
Besides that, anything you can think of (though I suppose you bring this up because you're out of ideas):
- bill/finance tracker
- calculator
- random sentence generator
- (see, even I have trouble coming up with a lot of ideas)
I also started recently creating my own functions specifically for reuse:
- universal input validation function
- "printTextColor()" function that I pass a string and a color code to, and it prints out in the string in the indicated color
- Dice rolling function, where I pass the maximum die value as an argument (I'm an RPGer, so I typically deal with non-standard dice)
- Card drawing function, that keeps track of cards used and returns an unused card (value and suit) every call. I pass a '1' to this function if I want to "reshuffle" (reset used card array so fresh cards can be drawn)
These are just some ideas from the top of my head. I hope this helps!
And if you want to make something larger than Matticus' suggestions:
- A small script parser.
- Simulation of Rigid body transformations...(Ha..it won't be a game...but still the same thing..!)
- A Network Simulator..(I'm working on one now)
- An useful Physics/Mathematics/anything_else library...(especially if you are studying those now..)
- An AI for playing some certain console game....(got this idea from the `Contest Board` here).
- A program that generates makefiles guessing the locations of the files that need to be compiled and libraries needed to be linked from the paths of the headers... (this should be easy..)
- An useful high level wrapper around OS specific time functions like gettimeofday() in linux
- ^Z out of ideas.
I guess I'm just offering advice "within my limits" :pQuote:
And if you want to make something larger than Matticus' suggestions...
I just realized that if many people contribute to this thread, it will have a lot of value to learners who are looking for practice ideas. Maybe it is destined to become a sticky! lol probably not, but I'll be sure to pass this thread along in the future to genuinely interested parties looking for practice ideas.Quote:
- ^Z out of ideas.
I agree with AndrewHunter, you need to push your limits. Pick something just beyond your comfort level. I also agree with Matticus, writing games can be quite educational and rewarding, and cover lots of topics.
If you want to practice some more "classical" CS type of stuff, try designing some abstract data types, and make a library of them for your future use. Things like singly, doubly and circularly linked lists, binary tree (balanced of course), hash tables, etc. Write your own compression software, maybe giving the user a choice between some common types, like RLE, Lempel-Ziv and Huffman. Write a path finding algorithm that you could later use in a LegoNXT project. Write software that organizes your mp3 library. Pick something you don't know much about (e.g. databases or network programming) and focus on projects that help you with that, even if you never use them after this summer. And don't worry about starting a project and not finishing it. It's just for fun, so pick something and if you don't like it, stop and move on to something else. You could also contribute to some open source software project.
It's very hard to suggest projects for other people, because we don't know your abilities, and more importantly, your interests.
If you look around, all successful projects have to do with interests of the author.
If you are interested in chess, make a chess AI. If you are a gamer, make a game. If you are a business major, make a spreadsheet app. Etc.
Coming up with a project is really one thing you will have to do yourself.
I have way too many project ideas lined up with no time to do them, but they probably won't be of any interest to you because those ideas are generated around my abilities and interests (embedded systems).
Ubuntu is easy to install and has an 'apps' browser with a game section of open source projects. I had some fun messing with Oolite.