Fun Programming Projects

When I’m learning a new programming language, the biggest challenge I face is figuring out what to build with it. Programming challenge websites can be useful, but they rarely ever push you towards exploring real-world use cases for a language.

Thankfully, there’s a variety of resources available on the Web that walk you through building reasonably complex projects step by step. I’ve collected a few of my favorites here.

• Crafting Interpreters by Bob Nystrom

• The Raytracing in One Weekend series by Peter Shirley

• Writing an OS in Rust by Philipp Oppermann

• Building Git by James Coglan

• Write Yourself a Git! by Thibault Polge

• Mazes for Programmers by Jamis Buck

• Roguelike Tutorial in Rust by Herbert Wolverson

• Roguelike Tutorial 2020 by gridbug

• Build Your Own Lisp by Daniel Holden

• Make a Lisp by Joel Martin and community

• Writing a NES Emulator in Rust by Rafael Bagmanov