What to write?

jds.programmer · April 2012

Hey,

I just finished one of my C book (and will be moving to the next one) and wanted to write something that would increase my knowledge. Something that can be useful. I don't mind if I work on it for days, even weeks. I just want to make something out of what I learned. I'm not into graphical programs. I look forward to being a systems programmer someday, needless to say, I joined the MINIX group and email thinking that I could participate on something they're working on, like, porting stuffs or modifying programs. But the topics didn't make sense to me. Maybe because these kind of things are not for beginners, obviously. So I just want to write my own stuffs and learn from them, and then move on to, maybe, applying patch for the Linux kernel(in my dreams, eh?), or making the next desktop environment for Linux.

So after all this crap, do you have any suggestion on what I should write?

Thanks,

jds

mfillpot · April 2012

Generally the best way to get real experience is to work on the code for an application that you use often, such as starting work on patches for bug fixes or new features that you would like. Those activities would also help you to become accustomed to the submission/evaluation process and to learn the proper syntax from higher level programmers.

What applications do you currently use that you think you can help with?

chekkizhar · April 2012

you can try with some virtual banking, chat client applications to use your 'c' knowledge with Linux, in CLI .That will cover all 'C' concepts and Linux function calls

woboyle · April 2012

Writing filter programs is good. I have spent quite a bit of time lately writing filters to take a variety of log files, such as SNMP or SAR (sysstat) data and convert it into a form suitable to input into a hadoop/hbase time series database. So far, I have written 4 or 5 such filters for our log data, which is helping us to pinpoint server problems with our data centers. I have also written programs to take Oracle database table data and turning it into XML files for off-line archiving and data restoration. That last one was a combination of PL/SQL and Java code. All the others were C or C++. These days (since the early 90's) I prefer C++, though for kernel code you are limited to C.