Ask HN: HN people who write meaningful software, how did you learn to program?

• Kavita

  206 5,065 9.8 C#

  Kavita is a fast, feature rich, cross platform reading server. Built with the goal of being a full solution for all your reading needs. Setup your own server and share your reading collection with your friends and family.

  

• Filestash

  108 9,414 9.3 JavaScript

  🦄 A modern web client for SFTP, S3, FTP, WebDAV, Git, Minio, LDAP, CalDAV, CardDAV, Mysql, Backblaze, ...

• WorkOS

  workos.com sponsored

  The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

  

• FlyingCarpet

  12 3,056 7.5 Rust

  Cross-platform AirDrop. File transfer between Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows over ad hoc WiFi. No network infrastructure required, just two devices with WiFi chips in close range.

I don't really know how many users I have, so I don't know how "meaningful" my projects are, but I have found some of them posted on French, Chinese, Greek, Russian blogs etc., so hopefully they fill some people's needs besides my own.

https://github.com/spieglt/flyingcarpet

https://cloaker.mobi

https://github.com/spieglt/cloaker

https://github.com/spieglt/whatfiles

https://github.com/spieglt/winage

I learned to program because I was frustrated that after working in IT consulting for several years, I still had no idea how computers worked. I started with "Learn Python the Hard Way" and "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python". Then got a job doing some Windows consulting stuff, and they said they'd hire me as a software engineer if I learned Go, which was a pretty easy step from Python. I'd tried to learn programming as a kid several times and always found it too frustrating. I started working on side projects as a way to learn new languages, improve my resume, and scratch my own itches. The hardest part was coming up with ideas for useful/worthwhile projects. I was super frustrated one day that the easiest way to get a file between two machines that were right beside each other was sending them out to the internet via Google Drive or Dropbox, which made me want to write "cross-platform AirDrop", which became Flying Carpet. If you find yourself wanting a simple piece of software that seems like it should already exist, that's a great project idea.

• Cloaker

  2 402 1.4 Rust

  Simple, drag-and-drop, password-based file encryption

I don't really know how many users I have, so I don't know how "meaningful" my projects are, but I have found some of them posted on French, Chinese, Greek, Russian blogs etc., so hopefully they fill some people's needs besides my own.

https://github.com/spieglt/flyingcarpet

https://cloaker.mobi

https://github.com/spieglt/cloaker

https://github.com/spieglt/whatfiles

https://github.com/spieglt/winage

I learned to program because I was frustrated that after working in IT consulting for several years, I still had no idea how computers worked. I started with "Learn Python the Hard Way" and "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python". Then got a job doing some Windows consulting stuff, and they said they'd hire me as a software engineer if I learned Go, which was a pretty easy step from Python. I'd tried to learn programming as a kid several times and always found it too frustrating. I started working on side projects as a way to learn new languages, improve my resume, and scratch my own itches. The hardest part was coming up with ideas for useful/worthwhile projects. I was super frustrated one day that the easiest way to get a file between two machines that were right beside each other was sending them out to the internet via Google Drive or Dropbox, which made me want to write "cross-platform AirDrop", which became Flying Carpet. If you find yourself wanting a simple piece of software that seems like it should already exist, that's a great project idea.

• whatfiles

  2 935 3.3 C

  Log what files are accessed by any Linux process

I don't really know how many users I have, so I don't know how "meaningful" my projects are, but I have found some of them posted on French, Chinese, Greek, Russian blogs etc., so hopefully they fill some people's needs besides my own.

https://github.com/spieglt/flyingcarpet

https://cloaker.mobi

https://github.com/spieglt/cloaker

https://github.com/spieglt/whatfiles

https://github.com/spieglt/winage

I learned to program because I was frustrated that after working in IT consulting for several years, I still had no idea how computers worked. I started with "Learn Python the Hard Way" and "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python". Then got a job doing some Windows consulting stuff, and they said they'd hire me as a software engineer if I learned Go, which was a pretty easy step from Python. I'd tried to learn programming as a kid several times and always found it too frustrating. I started working on side projects as a way to learn new languages, improve my resume, and scratch my own itches. The hardest part was coming up with ideas for useful/worthwhile projects. I was super frustrated one day that the easiest way to get a file between two machines that were right beside each other was sending them out to the internet via Google Drive or Dropbox, which made me want to write "cross-platform AirDrop", which became Flying Carpet. If you find yourself wanting a simple piece of software that seems like it should already exist, that's a great project idea.

• winage

  4 53 0.0 C++

  Windows GUI version of the age file encryption tool (built on rage, the Rust implementation)

I don't really know how many users I have, so I don't know how "meaningful" my projects are, but I have found some of them posted on French, Chinese, Greek, Russian blogs etc., so hopefully they fill some people's needs besides my own.

https://github.com/spieglt/flyingcarpet

https://cloaker.mobi

https://github.com/spieglt/cloaker

https://github.com/spieglt/whatfiles

https://github.com/spieglt/winage

I learned to program because I was frustrated that after working in IT consulting for several years, I still had no idea how computers worked. I started with "Learn Python the Hard Way" and "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python". Then got a job doing some Windows consulting stuff, and they said they'd hire me as a software engineer if I learned Go, which was a pretty easy step from Python. I'd tried to learn programming as a kid several times and always found it too frustrating. I started working on side projects as a way to learn new languages, improve my resume, and scratch my own itches. The hardest part was coming up with ideas for useful/worthwhile projects. I was super frustrated one day that the easiest way to get a file between two machines that were right beside each other was sending them out to the internet via Google Drive or Dropbox, which made me want to write "cross-platform AirDrop", which became Flying Carpet. If you find yourself wanting a simple piece of software that seems like it should already exist, that's a great project idea.

• jq

  306 25,063 0.0 C

  Discontinued Command-line JSON processor [Moved to: https://github.com/jqlang/jq] (by stedolan)

  

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com sponsored

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

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