Ask HN: Looking for side project ideas

What's your level? Are you a beginner or do you already have some experience?

Also: What's your language, your target market? Suggesting a backend project for a frontend language or vice versa doesn't help you much.

In general, start with a game. You can be as creative as you like, there are no limits. On the other hand, you can keep it as simple as you feel comfortable.

That said, if you have some experience, look for an open source library that needs support. You improve the library, you improve your resume and you will get constructive feedback.

MAL - Make a Lisp [0]. This one has been discussed on HN before - its where I found it. I completed it last year (from Jan to May 2019) and ended up with Lisp-a-like interpreter written in C# that is sophisticated enough to self-host (i.e. it can interpret and run itself). I picked it up again when the lockdown started and I am now using it to re-implement some of the classic AI systems described in Paradigms of AI Programming [1]. I almost have Eliza (the first chatbot, from 1966!) running, which has necessitated some thinking because MAL is closer to Clojure than the Common Lisp used in PAIP. I'm also implementing what is in effect a standard library of useful MAL functions.

What I got from MAL was much better knowledge of C#, better insights into the power of lisp-like languages, some intense satisfaction when I managed some of the more complex stages, etc. MAL is progressive, supported by 100s of tests, and an amazing array of reference implementations in a huge number of different programming languages.

[Edit] My side-project before MAL involved downloading the Unity game engine and using it to explore the different aspects of game development. I discovered that I really enjoyed asset creation and in particular lighting and shader design, and (long story short - totally bizarre trajectory) ended up creating a tutorial for the Octane render engine that has had actual sales! If I was going to look at games again I'd probably start with a simpler engine such as Godot [2]

[0] https://github.com/kanaka/mal/blob/master/process/guide.md

[1] https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp

[2] https://godotengine.org/

I think it's important to find feasible projects. A full stack project will probably be left unfinished. A way to find projects is to do tasks that you'd at work if you didn't have deadlines and were allowed to do more exploratory work.

That said. If you like nodejs, you might try to do a Babel plugin. They would allow you to do meta programming and it's an area mostly unexplored (because of the great breadth). In my case that was https://github.com/furstenheim/babel-plugin-meaningful-logs to improve error messages.

If you like java and use Intellij, give it a try at creating a plugin. You'll be able to simplify your flows. Since it's mostly self tailored it will be most probably not done. It's not extremely hard, in a couple days you might have something workable. In my case it was adding support for ZPL language, which is very niche. But most probably you can find something tailored to your dev experience.

I am working on spark tickets. Perhaps boring, but useful for others. Sometimes if you have no ideas, you can help out other projects instead.

Quite a nice way to get an idea of what to do.

Do you use this for serious products that you feel like releasing? Would you be discouraged when you have found an alternative on the market that fixed the problem for you?