Since I don’t write software for a living, and since I’m not in the IT business, per se, it can sometimes be hard for me to figure out what kinds of programs I should write. That’s why I’ve been slowly compiling a list of programs that might be interesting and fun to write. These should all be attainable at my current skill level…well, almost. I’m not saying they’ll be pretty, but hopefully functional. Here is what I have so far.
- A texted based RPG - I love games. This would be a fun little project to tackle. It’s still a bit out of my reach though I think.
- A small program that contains a dictionary of foods and their equivalent nutritional information (possibly just calories to start). - This will help out when I want to track my nutritional intake.
- A math game for Cameron - I thought I could make a game to help my 10 year old daughter with her math lessons. Maybe even unlock a code if she does well that will get her some sort of prize. This would be fun to write and beneficial to her.
- A program that modifies the Zip Lead sheets into lowercase letters. - At work, I get something called a Zip lead on a daily basis. It’s a spreadsheet of all the homes that have sold in our area. I would like to write a program that traverses the text, converts it into a format which I like, and places it in another file to use as mailing address for a later time. This one may also be a little out of my league, but maybe not for long.
- A time line program. - Something basic at first, but maybe incorporate some flash or Ajax in the future.
- A Morse code translator. - As I mentioned in my last post, I am reading a book about the rise (and fall) of the telegraph, and of course, Morse code. I thought it would be fun to write a little program that translates text into Morse code (and vice versa).
Those are some of the ideas I have right now. I’ll post more as I think of them.
February 2nd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
here are my thoughts, if you want them:
RGP: the interface should be trivially easy to write (take a look at the raw_input python function), but that’s only a minor part of the game. The game logic part of the program should be much more interesting.
Dictionary: perhaps a good opportunity to look at file access? Also, things like word searching should be interesting.
math game: good idea, do it. ’nuff said.
zip lead sheets: This looks like it may be challenging, depending on the format of the file you start with and what you want to change it to. Maybe a good opportunity for regular expressions, but again, depends on what you want to format it to.
time line: not sure what you mean by this. Like a line with marks on it representing historical events with dates?
Morse code: should be trivial, as in just a few lines. I would start with this, it’s the easiest of the bunch.
February 2nd, 2008 at 6:26 pm
For playing with spreadsheets you should try Resolver One.
It is a spreadsheet combined with a programming environment - so you can import your data and then write your Python code (IronPython) *in the spreadsheet* to process it.
http://www.resolversystems.com
http://www.resolverhacks.net
Michael Foord
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 am
Thanks for the feedback and info guys. This is exactly the stuff I need to know.
Another possible program that I forgot to mention is a hours-worked calculator. Something that you can enter start times and end times for any given day and have the program calculate hours worked for that week.
February 4th, 2008 at 8:24 am
a calculator working with time can be done in two ways. One, do all the math yourself, which is complicated but perhaps a good learning experience, and two, use python’s standard datetime module, which does time arithmetic for you.
The second option is what an experienced programmer should do (don’t reinvent the wheel), but you will have to dig through the documentation.
I’m not sure how your experience level is, so I can’t recommend either way. It’s a good idea to get familiar with the standard libraries, but it may still be a little out of your reach for now.