If we aren't expected to write new, different, useful quality code that solves real problems, then there's no reason anyone should start programming in the firs

If we aren't expected to write new, different, useful quality code that solves real problems, then there's no reason anyone should start programming in the first place. Everyone needs to start somewhere and maybe for a complete beginner expectations are low, but if you're not veteran enough to solve real world problems then you are in no position to be giving advice like "code every day" on the internet. The nice thing about solving real world problems is that you'll inherently learn something new, not just to you, but to humanity. And lets be clear here: you didn't learn how to write a scanner/parser from scratch, at least not a good one. To do that you would have to read literature and/or look at production code. It's unlikely that you've figured out decades of parser research with your lexer/parser--it's much more likely you've just reproduced a bunch of mistakes that were made and solved in the 60s without even realizing they were mistakes. You could actually learn how to write a good lexer/parser by reading a handful of academic papers or reading through the code of, say, PLY or working with a parser toolkit that exposes its workings like Parsec.