[adrianhel]

Some things I'd have loved to be told to build:

    Simple 2d game
    To do app
    Timesheet app
    Implement a clone of x with something extra of your choosing
    Top Twitter celebrity app using its API
    Building a search engine
    Creating a programming language

An issue with the programming courses at my uni was that none of them used a database. The programs were toy apps by design. Instruct students to use sqlite or MongoDB, and encourage them to use PostgreSQL/MySQL.

Our database class did use databases, but we had no integration of the two subjects.

[the_watcher]

To do app has always seemed an optimal one to me, since it should be relatively accessible, no matter your prior experience, but infinitely customizable. I remember a YC founder telling me that both pg and sama didn't think there was a broadly available to do app that met their needs, so they both rolled their own (and continue to update it as their needs change). That seems like a pretty optimal intro project to me