Dev Log #0 - Starting the Journey

I haven't been feeling great about the world of programming recently, and with that nagging feeling, I have started to struggle with burnout and a lack of motivation. To combat this feeling, I decided to go on a journey of discovery from the basics. I want to feel the joy of solving problems again by starting fresh with no pressure.

I have compiled a huge list of projects that I find interesting with the help of Claude. The list is so long I will likely never complete all the projects on it, but I will certainly try to complete as many as I can.

The rules for this challenge are simple. I have to write everything myself, the "old school" way. All I can reference are sources I can find¹. Second, everything will be written primarily in C++. Mostly because that is the language I find the most fascinating and enjoyable to explore and write with. C++ was, after all, the language that served as one of the primary motivators for me to get into programming in the first place. Again, the goal for me is to rediscover the joy in programming and problem solving, not to do anything particularly practical.

My reason for writing this in the form of dev logs is two-fold. First, I want to have at least some fragments to look back on when I look at this challenge in the future. Second, I want to have at least some external motivation to continue on. I hope you find it useful, but I do not promise anything.

Now, before I leave this, three final notes. I will make no changes to past dev logs, apart from minor fixes and porting the text to potential new versions of this website. As for the project list, I will make it public in the future once I have gone over it and completed some projects, so look at newer posts for that. Finally, I might occasionally use strong language in some of these logs. It's a convenient way of conveying strong emotion, and I feel it's worth it for informal posts like this, though I will use it very sparingly.

1: I can use blog posts, books, stack overflow, etc. but not artificial intelligence, apart from sourcing these "primary" materials.