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That's a very sweet idea. What are some other "software pilgrimage" projects for ambitious hackers with a finite amount of free time? Buying something in bitco

That's a very sweet idea. What are some other "software pilgrimage" projects for ambitious hackers with a finite amount of free time? Buying something in bitcoin using only the protocol spec and man pages? Tweeting from a Linux from scratch install? Writing a correct tar command on the first try? Writing a quine on your favorite language without google?

cashewchoo 6y ago
Heh. I was inspired by a movement I saw a while ago to read old CS academic research, since e.g. quicksort is still very relevant nowadays but is also still approachable for someone with a B.Sc. in CS. (Whereas more recent papers all require fairly deep knowledge of the research niche). My take on it was that lots of this old software was implemented by candlelight with a magnetized needle, a 512KiB HDD platter and a steady hand; so I should be able to reimplement it in a modern language with modern tooling in a lot less time, while learning a lot about the system. Like, dig command output means a lot more to me now than it did at the start, and I now appreciate what articles like the OP mean now.
the_imp 6y ago
I wrote a fully spec-compliant YAML library.
- zingplex 6y ago
  I didn't think that was possible
nishanth_v 6y ago
One of my friends is building a collection of such exercises aimed at experienced & intermediate programmers, where you build Redis / Docker / Git / React from scratch with guidance. https://codecrafters.io/challenges https://codecrafters.io/challenges
- abhijat 6y ago
  I remember doing a few of these last year. It was quite fun. They even added nim on request. I was able to use it to complete the docker challenge.
- maxwelljoslyn 6y ago
  See also: Robert Heaton's series of project prompts "Programming Projects for Advanced Beginners." https://robertheaton.com/2018/12/08/programming-projects-for-advanced-beginners/ https://robertheaton.com/2018/12/08/programming-projects-for... The project goals are not as lofty as those proposed by nishanth_v's friend, but Mr. Heaton goes the extra mile to turn each project idea into a step by step mini-curriculum with lots of extension points. Then, he goes another extra mile by allowing readers to email in their buggy projects, and running a companion series where he teaches people how to debug / fix / improve their code by refactoring reader's attempts at the "...Advanced Beginners" projects. Recommended.
bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
Follow up using bitcoin using only the protocol spec and man pages with setting up a multisig wallet on testnet!
wdfx 6y ago
I'm writing a software audio synthesiser. Not quite the same as I'm not following or reimplementing any established standard, but it's interesting and fun to Greenfield a c++ project using minimal dependencies to do things like: - invent and parse a DSL - modularise components and connections between them - possibly cyclic directed graph traversal - efficient near-real-time audio processing (working in chunks within a time budget) - multithreading / parallel module processing - spit the outputs into an audio device and/or wav files - eventually put a GUI on top
3np 6y ago
There’s so much. If I can dream, an LDAP implementation with a similar target as GP wound be fantastic. That’s not a short one though (:
trillic 6y ago
I built (against my will) a regex engine in college and it's the toughest, most CS'y "software pilgrimage" I could think of. In the same vein, I think building or designing some of the components in an OS or Systems book[1] could have a similar positive result. [1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/elements-computing-systems-second-edition https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/elements-computing-systems-se...
uncledave 6y ago
My personal pilgrimage seems to always end up designing designing a stack virtual machine and writing a compiler for it for a toy programming language. I tend to pick this up every time I learn a new language to get a feel for it. I usually get it to run a simple loop to print hello world and do the inevitable Fibonacci generator and get bored. No fancy things like functions! One of these things was crudely repurposed into a domain specific language for a job as well which was handy.
cheschire 6y ago
LFS was my first tech pilgrimage as a teen. I would love to see more projects with that level of optional hand holding!
waynesonfire 6y ago
bittorrent client

cashewchoo 6y ago

Heh. I was inspired by a movement I saw a while ago to read old CS academic research, since e.g. quicksort is still very relevant nowadays but is also still approachable for someone with a B.Sc. in CS. (Whereas more recent papers all require fairly deep knowledge of the research niche). My take on it was that lots of this old software was implemented by candlelight with a magnetized needle, a 512KiB HDD platter and a steady hand; so I should be able to reimplement it in a modern language with modern tooling in a lot less time, while learning a lot about the system. Like, dig command output means a lot more to me now than it did at the start, and I now appreciate what articles like the OP mean now.

the_imp 6y ago

I wrote a fully spec-compliant YAML library.

zingplex 6y ago
I didn't think that was possible

nishanth_v 6y ago

One of my friends is building a collection of such exercises aimed at experienced & intermediate programmers, where you build Redis / Docker / Git / React from scratch with guidance. https://codecrafters.io/challenges https://codecrafters.io/challenges

abhijat 6y ago
I remember doing a few of these last year. It was quite fun. They even added nim on request. I was able to use it to complete the docker challenge.
maxwelljoslyn 6y ago
See also: Robert Heaton's series of project prompts "Programming Projects for Advanced Beginners." https://robertheaton.com/2018/12/08/programming-projects-for-advanced-beginners/ https://robertheaton.com/2018/12/08/programming-projects-for... The project goals are not as lofty as those proposed by nishanth_v's friend, but Mr. Heaton goes the extra mile to turn each project idea into a step by step mini-curriculum with lots of extension points. Then, he goes another extra mile by allowing readers to email in their buggy projects, and running a companion series where he teaches people how to debug / fix / improve their code by refactoring reader's attempts at the "...Advanced Beginners" projects. Recommended.

bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago

Follow up using bitcoin using only the protocol spec and man pages with setting up a multisig wallet on testnet!

wdfx 6y ago

I'm writing a software audio synthesiser. Not quite the same as I'm not following or reimplementing any established standard, but it's interesting and fun to Greenfield a c++ project using minimal dependencies to do things like: - invent and parse a DSL - modularise components and connections between them - possibly cyclic directed graph traversal - efficient near-real-time audio processing (working in chunks within a time budget) - multithreading / parallel module processing - spit the outputs into an audio device and/or wav files - eventually put a GUI on top

3np 6y ago

There’s so much. If I can dream, an LDAP implementation with a similar target as GP wound be fantastic. That’s not a short one though (:

trillic 6y ago

I built (against my will) a regex engine in college and it's the toughest, most CS'y "software pilgrimage" I could think of. In the same vein, I think building or designing some of the components in an OS or Systems book[1] could have a similar positive result. [1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/elements-computing-systems-second-edition https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/elements-computing-systems-se...

uncledave 6y ago

My personal pilgrimage seems to always end up designing designing a stack virtual machine and writing a compiler for it for a toy programming language. I tend to pick this up every time I learn a new language to get a feel for it. I usually get it to run a simple loop to print hello world and do the inevitable Fibonacci generator and get bored. No fancy things like functions! One of these things was crudely repurposed into a domain specific language for a job as well which was handy.

cheschire 6y ago

LFS was my first tech pilgrimage as a teen. I would love to see more projects with that level of optional hand holding!

waynesonfire 6y ago

bittorrent client