Favorite Brainstorming Program?

Question

As an artist and musician, I often want to sit down and simply skip the code as a piece of free-form poetry, but I find that it will not work, and when I have a set a goal . Recently, I have been experimenting with creating tiny, funny goals for myself, unlike the way the artist sketched a quick still life, but I wonder ...

What do others do when they want to code for pleasure, without slavery to an already taken project?

Answer 1

The design work, I find, is a lot easier than just coding. I find that coding is often an implementation of good design; I really like just to sit down with paper and a pen (and probably a bottle of wine), and develop an interesting design.

Answer 2

Project Euler , where I am currently having fun. I can go at my own pace and work on issues that interest me. Also, work in any language I choose.

Answer 3

Write documentation when coding does not work out easy - coding will quickly seem much more attractive!

Answer 4

Going for a walk outside.

Answer 5

I tend to display my idea or build a structure in a MindMapping tool like MindMeister . And this is great for the team, because it can be edited in real time by several people!

Answer 6

I like to raise a new language and learn how to express ideas in it. Usually this gives me the opportunity to show me what I like and dislike in the languages ​​that I currently use. I usually choose a small tool project that I would like to do. Using a new language angle motivates me

My last “new language” is Scala, in which case it will most likely become the language I use.

Answer 7

I like to write on the board. Great for db diagrams, task lists, function lists, other lists, random ideas, notes, etc. (Db charts for me are biggie)

Answer 8

Python is great for everything that happens in the idea, and having a language (usually) behaves the way you expected.

While it may have its flaws, it sounds very good for what you are describing.

So, to answer your question, the Python Challenge is interesting and often makes me think about little things that would be fun for the code, perhaps because it provides you with various types of problems.

Answer 9

Answer 10

I like the code.

I like to find something interesting, encode it, and then see how it works.

This does not have to be a project for viewing, it is good enough if it does something, for example, use Google api to get picasa albums, change a song in iTunes or get information about the current iTunes song, automate downloading a document from a website for logins and requires cookies and all this, a data analyzer in python, a simple Mac application, basic data applications, google code issues, topcoder.com problems ...

Answer 11

I like to learn new features of a language or a new language / technology / patterns / tool :-)

Answer 12

Usually I will work in Photoshop for a while. Get creative and try to come up with a new design that is not limited to any code. Perhaps even finding something inspirational on the Internet for new design ideas ... then try to implement design in code. This is a funny and challenging bit.

Answer 13

Use REPL.

You often understand what you need to do - which APIs you need to use, which data structures you need to process, and then push them interactively until they start to make sense. A ton of languages ​​that I use now has REPL: Ruby, Python, Scala, Java (BeanShell, or JRuby / Jython, etc.), C # ('csharp'), PHP (Facebook made REPL for it), Smalltalk (GNU gst) and, obviously, the LISP / Scheme.