Choosing A Project

Now that I’m digging into some newer frameworks in PHP I decided it might be best to think of a project I can build while learning. This has always been something I kind of have difficulty deciding on in the past. Most of my indecision comes from not wanting to “waste time” or worrying about other implementations of said projects out there. In my opinion, working on a project is the best way to learn something new though so it’s time to get up and do something.

If I put aside my two biggest blocking thoughts (“someone has done this already and it’s great and I can’t match it” and “what’s the point of doing this since it’s done already”) I may just be able to decide on something which is going to be used for learning purposes anyway. So I need to go over some of these ideas and go with one.

Forum/CMS – There are loads of forums out there, some doing OK, some falling behind. The forum world itself has taken a hit with things like Discord and Facebook groups but I still believe there is an audience for forums. I add the CMS part on there as I believe forums should have advanced to a place where they can do more. This would be a good learning project with a lot of moving parts to it.

To-Do App – Everyone makes a to-do app when learning. If I put that aside and just focus on this being a learning experience it might be worth it. While a basic to-do list can be very simple there are a lot of additions that can be built that make them more complex including integrations with other software.

Novel Writing Software – This is a bit of a unique one and while there are some very well known packages out there it’s always been kind of intriguing to me. One of the things I always liked about software was the ability to help others and this is no exception, it could be used by others to help with their creative endeavours. I’m just not sure if this would work being web only or if it would need a desktop application to go with it.

Help desk Software – Loads of them out there already but, again, learning project. They can get pretty in depth and have a lot of moving parts much like a forum so the idea of it is interesting to me. While I doubt I could get others to use it, it may just offer enough challenge to learn with.

Software Project Software – Something to do with planning of a software project. Recently went looking for something like this and didn’t find anything (so I stick with Google Docs for now). Could be somewhere to plan out software, maybe make a roadmap, an issue tracker, and more.

So now I need to figure out what to dig into. I wish I had a large group of people to ask and get some feedback on this but I’ll figure it out.