This doesn't really make sense. If your goal is to become a skilled chess player, writing a program doesn't address that. You'd need to put in the time. If, on

This doesn't really make sense. If your goal is to become a skilled chess player, writing a program doesn't address that. You'd need to put in the time. If, on the other hand, your goal is to win games, why waste time writing a program? Just take one of the strongest engines and build on it. If the goal was to learn how to program an engine, again, that's what you do.