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Project ideas to appreciate the art of programming

https://codecrafters.io/blog/programming-project-ideas
94•vitaelabitur•2h ago

Comments

sanufar•2h ago
Highly recommend writing a BitTorrent client. The spec is easy to grok, it has a bunch of fun subproblems that you can go as deep or as shallow as you want into, and it's super rewarding being able to download something like the Debian kernel after all of your hard work. Magnet links and seeding are two fun things to tackle post basic implementation. It also got me really interested in peer to peer systems and DHTs like Chord!
yakattak•59m ago
In college one of our end of semester projects was to make a “peer to peer” client. Not specifically BitTorrent. It was so much fun! Coming up with the ways of handshaking, chunk sizes, etc. It was so cool to see it actually work as a new student.
Jtsummers•2h ago
This is a strange list. #58 is make your own malloc, ok. That's a moderately difficult project for a new developer (made harder if they don't know anything about what malloc actually does under the hood, you may need to study up a bit on operating systems and some other things before you even start). Followed by #59 where they suggest you build your own streaming protocol from scratch...

There are some good projects in there, but the levels of difficulty are all over the place.

keyle•1h ago
My rAI-dar says this list and blurbs are very likely produced by AI. It really reads like in near the middle.
azhenley•1h ago
I’ll plug my series of project ideas that have also been discussed here on HN over the years: Challenging programming projects every programmer should try

https://austinhenley.com/blog/challengingprojects.html

matthewfcarlson•1h ago
As part of undergrad we had to implement space invaders on a Zync FPGA so you got to choose which bits you did in hardware and what was in software. It was a blast seeing what people came up with as you could do “extras” that gave you bonus points. Someone built a simple microphone frequency analysis block so you could go left, right, and fire by playing notes on a recorder.
thfuran•36m ago
>on a Zync FPGA so you got to choose which bits you did in hardware and what was in software.

You mean verilog vs block diagram, or did those boards have like a microcontroller too for more normal software?

fxwin•1h ago
I've seen your list before and find it much easier to appreciate than the OP tbh. It is very concise, the descriptions actually describe what one might learn or struggle with and each project comes with resources to get started with (One day i might even get around to doing one of these ;)

The OP very much comes off to me as a "here are 100 books you need to read before you die" recommendation porn type of post where the author has done none of the things listed.

johnnyfived•4m ago
Agreed this is more appealing to read and visually look through even.
zhainya•1h ago
Is this what the kids call "astroturfing"?
wg0•1h ago
AI usage verboten? Or erlaubt?
578_Observer•1h ago
I see comments suspecting this list is AI-generated. That might be true. But ironically, the practice of "building from scratch" is the best antidote to AI dependency.

Writing from Japan, we call this process "Shugyo" (austere training). A master carpenter spends years learning to sharpen tools, not because it's efficient, but to understand the nature of the steel.

Building your own Redis or Git isn't about the result (which AI can give you instantly). It is about the friction. That friction builds a mental model that no LLM can simulate.

Whether this post is marketing or not, the "Shugyo" itself is valid.

kace91•1h ago
>Writing from Japan, we call this process "Shugyo" (austere training). A master carpenter spends years learning to sharpen tools, not because it's efficient, but to understand the nature of the steel.

Is there repetition implied? Would you build your own redis 20 times? (Just curious).

jebarker•52m ago
Mike Acton talks about deliberate practice in programming exactly this way. Every day start with a blank sheet and try to build something for an hour (his example is Astroids). Next day, start again and get a little further. Eventually you'll be able to build the whole thing in an hour.
anonzzzies•41m ago
Not OP but I would and do write things 20x, for the simple reason that the 2nd is better than the 1st, even after refactoring the first, the 3rd better than the 2nd etc. We have a durable workflow thing from when it wasn't a thing yet (it was called enterprise workflow engine or something back then) which I started in PHP in the mid 90s, it has been rewritten by me over 30x and now its as optimal as it can be. It is finally finished. I have 20 year old clients who upgraded to it and are happier with the performance and stability. We do this with many parts of our software stack; not big refactoring but rewrite from scratch. One thing with this: in my opinion you can only rewrite if you are NOT adding any features; it should be a 1 to 1 rebuild.
mi_lk•1h ago
You really can't help mentioning you write your comment from Japan in most of your comments for some reason.

Not that it's my business that whether you were actually born and raised in Japan or an immigrant/expat. Just a random observation and that I don't think you have any less point without mentioning it

Considering your account age, it's a bit of bot smell if you ask me

578_Observer•16m ago
Fair point. That is my bad habit.

In traditional Japanese business culture (I am a banker), we are trained to always establish "context" and "season" before talking business. It feels rude to start abruptly.

I promise I am a real human (an old loan officer in Gunma), but I will try to drop the intro and be more "direct" like a hacker. Thanks for the feedback.

ertian•7m ago
I appreciated the texture of your message. It's really unfortunate that the bot plague is making us all suspicious of any well-written or idiosyncratic posts.
rramadass•51m ago
This is just AI generated slop with things being all over the map with no details/notes etc.

A far better way is to go through the book series The Architecture of Open Source Applications and pick one which catches your fancy - https://aosabook.org/en/ There are enough details/notes here from experts to show one how to think about an application so that you have something concrete to start from.

SamDc73•43m ago
This reads a bit similar to the build-your-own-x series

https://github.com/codecrafters-io/build-your-own-x

Feel like one of these things a lot of talk about but very tiny do ...

TrackerFF•2m ago
Some of these could take a day, like random tree / forest.

Others are easily within the scope / size of a undergrad final project. Or even a masters degree thesis.

The Window for Local-First AI (Before the Defaults Ship)

https://www.localghost.ai/inflection
2•zerocool86•6m ago•1 comments

The State of LLMs 2025: Progress, Progress, and Predictions

https://magazine.sebastianraschka.com/p/state-of-llms-2025
1•ibobev•8m ago•0 comments

Investigating and fixing a nasty clone bug

https://kobzol.github.io/rust/2025/12/30/investigating-and-fixing-a-nasty-clone-bug.html
1•ibobev•14m ago•0 comments

How to translate a ROM: The mysteries of the game cartridge [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDg73E1n5-g
2•zdw•28m ago•0 comments

What async means for your Python web app?

https://hackeryarn.com/post/async-python-benchmarks/
1•hackeryarn•28m ago•0 comments

MAME 0.284

https://www.mamedev.org/?p=558
2•chungy•29m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How did you make yourself more marketable?

5•ronbenton•37m ago•3 comments

2025 End of Year Engineering Pay Report

https://levels.fyi/2025/
2•zuhayeer•45m ago•0 comments

Anomalous electronic state opens pathway to room-temperature superconductivity

https://phys.org/news/2025-11-anomalous-electronic-state-pathway-room.html
4•PaulHoule•48m ago•0 comments

S&P500 Priced in Gold

https://pricedingold.com/sp-500/
4•jcartw•48m ago•1 comments

Screen Sizes: A Web App That Shows the Display Resolution for Every iPhone Model

https://screensizes.app/
1•alwillis•51m ago•1 comments

Exploring Dithering on Spectra 6-color E-Ink Displays

https://myembeddedstuff.com/e-ink-spectra-6-color
1•edent•55m ago•0 comments

Personalization Requires Data

https://www.uzpg.me/technical/2025/12/29/agents-personalization.html
1•etherio•57m ago•0 comments

AI company has released an app that lets people converse with avatars of dead

https://old.reddit.com/r/STEW_ScTecEngWorld/comments/1owliqk/an_ai_company_has_released_an_app_th...
1•emeraldd•57m ago•3 comments

The Gemini AI Studio "Context Tax": How a 10-word prompt cost me £121

3•daitandojo•1h ago•0 comments

C++20 Modules: Best Practices from a User's Perspective

https://chuanqixu9.github.io/c++/2025/12/30/C++20-Modules-Best-Practices.en.html
1•aw1621107•1h ago•0 comments

Odoo: Open-Source ERP

https://github.com/odoo/odoo
1•stein1946•1h ago•0 comments

Brazilian court requiring Reddit to disclose identity of a ponzi whistleblower

https://www.conjur.com.br/2025-dez-30/reddit-deve-fornecer-dados-de-perfil-anonimo-que-fez-postag...
4•dotluis•1h ago•0 comments

AI code analysis is getting good

https://hachyderm.io/@mitchellh/115810614410324976
4•sashk•1h ago•0 comments

Stop Chatting with AI. Start Loops (Ralph Driven Development)

https://lukeparker.dev/stop-chatting-with-ai-start-loops-ralph-driven-development
1•ghuntley•1h ago•0 comments

Logarithmic Scales of Pleasure and Pain (2019)

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gtGe8WkeFvqucYLAF/logarithmic-scales-of-pleasure-and-pa...
1•eatitraw•1h ago•0 comments

LLMs for Medical Practice: Look Out

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/llms-medical-practice-look-out
4•xigoi•1h ago•0 comments

TidesDB – A Modern RocksDB Replacement [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkxTqd_LaCQ
1•alexpadula•1h ago•0 comments

Porting Graph:Easy to TypeScript with GPT-5.2 and Azad

https://tomisin.space/projects/graph-easy-ts/
2•AntiRush•1h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How does an indy website integrate with cookie vendors to make money?

2•ricksunny•1h ago•0 comments

Alan Kay – 75 Years of Graphical User Interfaces [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS20Z0RXr28
7•spiralganglion•1h ago•0 comments

A History of My Homelab

https://vhaudiquet.fr/blog/history-homelab/
3•vhaudiquet•1h ago•0 comments

Capital in the 22nd Century

https://philiptrammell.substack.com/p/capital-in-the-22nd-century
2•coloneltcb•1h ago•0 comments

The First Video Game Came Long Before Pong

https://www.iflscience.com/the-first-video-game-came-long-before-pong-and-was-invented-by-a-manha...
3•geox•1h ago•1 comments

Cross-site Scripting-benchmark of Python sanitizers against real browsers

https://github.com/EmilStenstrom/justhtml-xss-bench
2•EmilStenstrom•1h ago•1 comments