Skezid

Have any of you ever experienced this dilemma? Let's say you wanted to whip up a quick program that would take a few hours of your time, just for fun, but you don't know what you want your program to do. The scope of a project is either too large, or the difficulty is too easy, or too complex, so you're stuck trying to learn more.

Any ideas on where to get.. ideas when you're stuck in one of those 'quickie' moods?
Command line utilities seem like the way to go, but everything you need has already been written (or so it seems with the Internet).

So you can use this thread to discuss said topic, or to post ideas and stuff.

Narue

>Any ideas on where to get.. ideas when you're
>stuck in one of those 'quickie' moods?
I'll typically redesign something older to match my current experience and see how I've changed over the years.

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Even if the voices aren't real, they have some pretty good ideas.

dr.p

Once I started coding for a living, I started to get stuck. But, recently, I've gotten back to where I code for the sake of learning.

I ended up taking on a lot of personal projects that are too large for one person. I do that on purpose so that I always have something to work on. I've got each of them broken down into manageable steps. When I'm in the mood to program, I pick a project that looks fun at the moment. I could be working on the project itself, or creating a console utility to aide in its development, or a bare-bones app that tests specific classes or features.

I also tend to explore management tools and design strategies when I feel stuck on some part of a project. I've recently learned CVS, applied it to my major projects; Doxygen, started to document my existing code; make; VC++ IDE project config; and I'm practising OOP and template class design at the moment.

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Neeley.org

WaltP

So? Hasn't everything you code to learn (class, books, etc) been written before? So write something that already exists that uses a technique that's new to you. Then at least you have another program to test yours against.

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Testing 001 010 011 100....

BstrucT

I always think of small companies around where I live, like the jewelry store or cafe or petshop.
I see them not using any point of sale programs , just a register.
So I try to picture myself working there, and what program would work the best for them. Maybe it has inventory controll, maybe calculates payments over terms, whatever.

That's cool because it is not big projects and if I don't want to work with the inventory today, I'll focus on getting the tax right. If I don't feel like that, I will work on the streams or file management of the app.

And if I am really unsure I just launch Fireworks and design some crazy buttons!

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if (understanding of Pointers != Great)
{
do (.Net);
}

Infinite Recursion

There is not a problem developing a program that already exists. You will surely learn something new by doing so... I usually get an idea in the middle of the day, jot it down in my palm tx and go home and implement it. If I'm stuck on ideas, I just think of some manual process and figure out a way to automate it. One of my main problems is turning a project that supposed to be small and trivial into one that is large and complex. I have more project ideas on my plate now than there is available time... so the problem becomes, which one should I work on first.

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http://jasonpowers.net

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."