guys i am going to start programming in a little while, and im serious about dedication ! i want to enter a really nice computer science competition, and I want to know(serious stuff, no joke thread!) what would you like to have(software) that will be useful to many users, that will make me big in this competition?

thx in advance if i make it to the nationals you guys will definately be given credit

hm...well I was thinking the other day, it would be nice to have something like root-tail, except as an xterm. So you'd basically have an xterm on your desktop . I'm not sure whether you could modify xterm / rxvt to do this, but the implication from the root-tail website is that you can.

hey LOL that would be an awsome idea........ give me a month or two i have to be very focused on my work, dont mind me if i dont reply for a while i will DEFINATELY be reading though

Make a flawless framebuffer driver for nvidia cards.

Make a linux install sheild, where you can install software more like you can in windows,it would be nice if we got the choiche of where to pu an app. in the menu, & the choiche to put an icon on the desktop. It would work with source code to, the app. would automaticly compile the package for your system, you could choose avanced to setup the options you want. Is that a good explanation? Call it ALIS (Advanced Linux Install Sheild), that is about all linux is missing an easy way to install. Well an uninstall sheild would be good to add to that.

Um... if you're just getting into programming I suggest you start really small. I mean really small.

Jumping into an application will only discourage you and you'll most likey never accomplish a quarter of what you wanted.

Write a little address book or something. There are a lot programming concepts you could apply to that.

I agree with rmartine.

If you're just starting out, its easy to get depressed if you take on a large project (unless you have a really really large amount of patience).

My first one recently when I tackled QT to refresh my C++ was a popup window that displays outputs from "fortune" (I like fortune ), added a quit and next button. Its not big (and I'm sure its been done dozens of times), but I did learn a lot and it was fun....

this is quite simple, ive almost finished it myself.

<long talk about package managers>

basically there arnt any really good package management solutions for linux, the problem is unix filesystem is designed so binaries go into bin, man pages into man etc which makes it very easy to find what your looking for but does not make it easy to find out which files belong to a specific package. while looking for a solution i came across epkg/stow style package management, its a great idea really, you install all your software in its own directory then the package manager goes and symlinks those files into /usr or where ever they are supposed to go. i didnt like any of them though, they all tried too hard to do too much.

</long talk about package managers>

so what i think you should write is a simple command line tool that will produce a symlink copy of a directory tree in another directory tree.

yeah i wanted to know something about QT when it says its a C++ GUI Toolkit does that mean its a GUI for writing C++(ewwwwwww) or helps your create a GUI like visual studio(where can i learn how to use QT)? i am learning ascii C++, basically commandline C++, and dont worry guys im going to do 12+ hours of C++ a day from sept 3 on, I am also thinking of the install shield, and i would like it to be GUI, for newbies, because it helps a lot, but command line will also be there because, if we only do GUI won't we become line "the jew?"

Native directx plugin for Xfree86 (mesa like? glx like but directx, then wine can plugin and venders can add driver support (nv, ati, etc) it can start as an empty xfree86 plugin to figure it out, then slowly use parts of wine code and reverse engineering to get it. this would benefit the linux commnity, not just in games, but other d3d things.

forget my questions about QT, I GOT IT AND MAN ITS WHAT IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR ITS JUST LIKE VISUAL STUDIO I SHOULD HAVE THIS DONE IN A MONTH OR TWO ;p

I've done a lot of windows programs, but when it comes to linux, everytime there's something totally new to learn (or to deal with, as you would say ;-).

Anyway, I saw that the best practice for someone who wants to start, is to take part to another open project. It's the "Bazaar" stuff that make you able to learn from others in Linux. (though I have to say I'm still rather unexperienced)

My advice is to start opening Bugzilla accounts on Mozilla.org, Wine, OpenOffice.org, or whatever you like (and a SourceForge account!), and start writing patches for bug of programs that others wrote before you.

I know it can be boring, sometimes... but the result will show up quickly when you'll realize that your programs will become more organized, 'cause you'll start using good ideas from what you've already seen and you'll take them further.

I hope to have said a good thing, else don't flame ;-)

For me, access to other people work means sharing knowdledge, and that's the reason why I love Free Software: you can always look at the sources.

ho_10,

root-tail in a xterm:
xterm -e tail -n0 -f /var/log/messages (or whatever you want)

And sorry for interruption...

Enjoy

ah, thank you, lfur

tchnerbog....... i hope your right because i think you have a good idea and im going to follow it. exodus i couldnt have thought better im such an idiot :P