Whats the first program you WANTED to write but couldn't finish?

Question

I was in 6th or 7th grade when I first started coding on an 8088 with DOS and Turbo C.

The first real program I ever wanted to write was a reminder app for DOS to use for a little business I came up with and I never finished it.

The idea was that the app would let you enter people, phone numbers, and details about what you should remind them of. The app would generate a daily list of people to call and what to say. I started on this but didn't get far, lost interest when trying to figure out how to save and load data from disk (I didn't have any programming books and no internet of course).

What was the first program you WANTED to write but couldn't finish?

Answer 1

Usually a simple modification to an existing program outside of my control.

Answer 2

An encryption program - wasn't concerned if my algorithm was secure, I just wanted to get it to work.

Answer 3

A good few years ago when I was still finding my feet I decided to write a web browser in Java. I got all the initial cool stuff out of the way, like tag parsing and forming the structure of the HTML document before the staggering complexity of what I was trying to do set in. I think what killed it stone dead was realising that Java already had a built-in HTML rendering control.

Answer 4

Password protection program for Windows files/folders/applications.

Answer 5

Around 1999 I tried to code my very own web browser in VB6 (I believe that's the version I had). After a week of work I realized there was an IE control I could just draw instead :)

However, I did try to create a tabbed version of IE, but again, didn't really finish.

I just realized something, was I the first on to think of this? Or was there a tabbed browser circa 1999?

Answer 6

I started a company to create a CAD program for BeOS on the BeBox. Be subsequently killed the BeBox and our hopes and dreams died with it.

Answer 7

An inventory management system with online store no less! I was probably in 12h grade or close.

I must have made every single mistake a new guy makes.

• I barely understood relational database, stored everything unormalized

• For "fast" access I would denormalize to a sequential text file cause it was faster than my awful table structure (I didn't know about indexes)

• I spec'd it out as a monster of an app with features that I would have never used.

• The back end had some advanced features! auto-complete for textboxes, every keyup would look into a text file to see if it could find suggestion.

Oh and it was using MS Access ;) combined with VB 6. I still have the files and something resembling documentation...

Doubt I'll ever finish that, since I don't really have taking over the world ambition anymore. hehehe

Answer 8

A homebrew game for the Wii. I currently have some working code to draw some simple stuff on the screen. I have a few demos that display graphics and such. But never got around to programming an actual game.

Answer 9

It was a long time ago, but I think I was calling it "Hello [somethingorother]"

Answer 10

For me, it would be a clone of Space Spartans (an intellivision console game) on my Apple IIe. I got as far as a believable scrolling starfield with inertia to simulate the turning of a heavy starship, and some laser weapons. Unfortunately, once I got that working, I had maxed out the CPU and there were no cycles left to put in any actual aliens to shoot at :(

Answer 11

A Rubik's Cube solution finder (for TI-99). I was in 7th grade and thought it would be a fun project. Turned out to be a bit too complex for what little BASIC I knew at the time.

Answer 12

A program to write other programs based on simple specs in English! I even started out to write it in GWBASIC. I guess I was 10 then.

Building a Perpetual motion machine was my other goal.

Answer 13

I always wanted to make a MUD game engine and tools to create MUDs. I figured text based gaming would be easier to program than all the fancy graphics stuff. I started a few times and have design notes floating around somewhere on crusty yellowed paper but I never really got anywhere.

Answer 14

Testing 2 variables with BASIC logic and never or always reached ie

if W$<>INPUT or Y$<>INPUT

Answer 15

Back in high school (~2002) I started work on a basic WiFi mapping program. It was written in VB6 and integrated with WiGLE.net. The program was awesome when it worked, but had a lot of issues. I tried to maintain it after starting college, but didn't have much time for it.

Later on I began re-writing it for .NET, but stumbled across ArcGIS and didn't see the need anymore.