Rediscovering the Joy of Programming Through Toy Projects

The author believes that creation is key to understanding. Instead of avoiding reinventing the wheel, build your own—it teaches you more than any book. In today's increasingly commodified software development landscape, the author advocates for building simple 'toy projects' to rediscover the joy of programming. The article lists numerous toy projects, such as a regex engine, an x86 OS kernel, and game emulators, rated by difficulty and time commitment, encouraging readers to try them and learn.