Ask HN: What projects should be on every developer's "bucket list?"
By this I mean what project should everyone build not because its useful or new, but because the process of building it forces you to learn something new. Some examples I've heard are your own programming language or a simple implementation of a database. * Recursive file system management tools. Most developers cannot navigate a tree model and cower in great fear * performance analysis/monitoring tools. Most developers are astoundingly bad at performance and then lie about it with weird unfounded guesses * markdown to html parser or the opposite. Most developers have no idea the actual cost of involvement required for basic string parsing and wrongly believe it’s free * network proxy. Aside from authentication this is mind blowingly simple. Most developers will supremely over engineer this * API documentation. In a world where the average developer struggles to write an email actually describing inputs, purpose, and outputs clear enough for a stranger to follow can be quite the impossibility A video game. Any kind of video game. It is fun to develop, rewarding and the dynamics inside the code are always interesting (input from the player, performance, graphics, etc). Even a simple game that can take an afternoon or a day to develop bring some fresh air. I think writing a book about something technical. Either self-published (I like leanpub) or through a publisher. Doesn't have to be long, even a 30 page ebook is a big effort. I have done this a few times and you learn so much and appreciate so much. Other than that, I think it really depends on where you are starting. If you are a webdev, building an MVC framework. If you are a system programmer, building a basic HTTP.1/1 web server. How do you know that you know "enough" on a topic to write a book on it? My process for any book I'm thinking about writing is: - write out 10 titles for blog posts on the topic - write 1-2 blog posts (this lets you see if you have interest/expertise) - do a bit of research to see if someone else has written on the topic (some googling or reddit searching - write the rest of the blog posts If you can't write 10 blog posts about a topic, then you don't have either: - the interest in the topic - the knowledge in the topic If no one else has written anything about the topic, it might not be worth writing about, but you also want to make sure your take is unique enough to be worth your effort. - Maybe by researching until it feels like you do? I mean sometimes writing can be a learning process, not just a teaching one. Doing a programming language/compiler was very educational and did a lot to demystify computers for me. I would also second the recommendations to write a game. If for no other reason than the fact that it is some of the most fun programming there is, you usually get to flex muscles you'd never get to in a boring web dev job. A ProjectContractChargingPeriodProjectAccountReferenceVMFactoryBuilderStrategy Implementation Text editor, compiler, BASIC interpreter, virtual machine emulator, CRUD application, web server, Lisp interpreter, Forth Interpreter, SQL database application. Repeat the above as gui applications, and on the web. An ERP and a blog engine with the first post being about it Automation tools for your own use. I did my own job offer web scraper. I've saved lots of time and pain automating work. A video game engine An overdesigned, overengineered personal website Make that 6 iterations of such a site, one using wordpress, one using HTML and VIM and no tools, one using an SSG, one using k8s on 4 solar-powered rpis, one using a home-made CMS, and one written in Rust from scratch. Each one with a blog post "Why I...". JPEG codec MPEG 1 codec Minimal HTTP server of actually used features. A raytracer and an emacs mode. An ecommerce website. Bots A Todo list
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