hobby-project

Personal Project - Next practical language/tech to learn

I'm working on a personal project doing some finance analysis. It's a totally new field for me, and I'm really having fun with it so far, plus working in the high-level language arena is a great break from my embedded systems daytime work. I have a MySQL backend on a non-local server with a pile of stock data. My task now is to do some ...

What interesting project(s) are you working on

This is more curiosity than anything else but what interesting project(s) are you currently working and using what tools? I just wanted to get a flavour of the kind of work people on this site do (either in their spare time or as part of their job). I'll start off by saying I'm building a Natural Language Processor in C# as part of a p...

Coders-Block... What is a good way to find ideas for projects?

I want to develop something at home but I cannot think of anything at all. I do not want to write anything that has been written before... What is a good way to find ideas for projects? ...

Have you ever bought a commercial implementation of a programming language for personal programming projects?

Commercial products are often a source of ideas and inspiration for open source projects. There are free and open source implementations of almost every programming language ever devised, and a lot of them are very good. For non-work related personal programming projects, have you ever bought an expensive commerical implementation of a ...

Where can I see others' upcoming hobby or business projects?

I would like to see what other programmers are up to. Can anyone post some lists which contain upcoming projects (for example: http://www.techcrunch50.com/)? Or if you are working on something then feel free to list it here. ...

Any advantage to releasing hobby projects publicly?

Let's say I have a hobby project (a web-app), which I code on during my spare time. I am doing this just for learning a new language/framework/methodology - I have not really thought about releasing it into the wild. If I host this web app and release it for public usage, then is there any advantage to this? Can I learn something which ...

Howto manage the game state in face of the EDT?

I'm developing a real time strategy game clone on the Java platform and I have some conceptional questions about where to put and how to manage the game state. The game uses Swing/Java2D as rendering. In the current development phase, no simulation and no AI is present and only the user is able to change the state of the game (for exampl...

Long running RTS game multiplayer considerations

I'm working on a real-time space strategy game clone which at its time did not have any multiplayer option. I want to add multiplayer to it. The gameplay itself is relatively long: about 10-15 hours of gameplay needed for complete a playthrough. This is very long and I don't want to force the players to play it uninterrupted or lose th...

Is writing specifications for hobby projects the only way for them to be finished?

Here's what I'm wondering. Every night that our 3 months old baby lets us sleep, I jump to my computer and start coding my hobby projects. I have about 20 different projects that I'm working on: different types of projects, from C++ games to web apps along with some contribution to open source projects. It's truly a passion and has been ...

Howto design a clock driven multi-agent simulation

I want to create a multi-agent simulation model for a real word manufacturing process to evaluate some dispatching rules. The simulation needs to produce event logs to evaluate time effect of the dispatching rules compared to the real manufacturing event logs. How can I incorporate the 'current simulation time' into this kind of multi-a...

Good Projects for learning desktop GUI programming

I am a mostly self taught programmer. When I learn a new language it usually goes like this: Buy a book (or books) on a language. Read said book(s). Look up more confusing/interesting aspects on the web. Actually use that language for something (using the web, and book as reference) Web programming provides plenty of possibilities fo...

How to create a movie from 5000 PNG files?

Well, simple situation. I've created about 5000 frames as PNG files which I want to display as an animation inside a .NET application. Every image is 1920x1080 in size and the PNG file uses alpha channels for (partial) transparency. And that's going to complicate things a bit, because I would prefer to keep it transparent. (But if that's...

Advice for Hobby Application: Laser Show Editor/Simulator

I've been wanting to work on this application for about a year now. I want to create a 'Laser Show Simulator/Editor'. I want to be able to place lights in different positions on a stage and I want to be able to script each one of them to do various operations such as turning, go on and off at certain intervals, change color, etc. Being r...

What microcontroller (and other components) would I need to create a timer device?

As a hobby project to keep myself out of trouble, I'd like to build a little programmer timer device. It will basically accept a program which is a list of times and then count down from each time. I'd like to use a C or Java micro controller. I have used BASIC in the past to make a little autonomous robot, so this time around I'd like ...

Is it possible to write offline GPS navigation software as a hobbyist?

Basically I'm wanting to create a GPS system for my car that works offline, but I'm just a hobbyist and doing this for fun, so I don't have a ton of money to invest. Are there open databases I can use for the data (roads, speed limits, etc), or is it just impossible to do? ...

How would you make a Windows application that conditionally blocks input?

You may have heard of PawSense, a Windows-only utility that prevents keystrokes from being entered when it believes there is a cat or other animal on the keyboard typing nonsense input like "zlxkkkkkkkk;". It seems like a fun project to do in my spare time but I was wondering about some details of implementing it. I think I could do the...

Interesting projects/problems/challenges to work on?

Being a "true" developer I love working on projects in my spare time. This is not necessarily to reach a particular end but just so that I can keep my skills sharp, work with the latest patterns and ideas, and see if the latest thinking on things holds up for me. I don't like just doing sample bits of code, but rather try and wrap thing...

Looking for an algorithm that will show how to fit the most boxes in a container.

I've been interested in writing an application that will show how to fit boxes (of random dimensions) in a container so there is as little space as possible left. A real life example would be something that would tell you how to use the most space in a UPS truck. Does anyone know of a good place to start for something like this? Is th...

SQLite concurrency issue a deal breaker?

I am looking at databases for a home project (ASP.NET MVC) which I might host eventually. After reading a similar question here on Stack Overflow I have decided to go with MySQL. However, the easy of use & deployment of SQLite is tempting, and I would like to confirm my reasons before I write it off completely. My goal is to maintain u...