... no[t] boring exercises but by writing real, challenging programs ... |
Yep, reinvent the wheel (so you already know how the result could look like). How about a
Brainfuck interpreter, but one with all bells and whistles, videlicet trace, brakepoints, ...
see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck about BF, looking for its interpreters you will find some useful and many not so useful.
Something more useful? Yes, bring
Pipeline as it works on VM/CMS to the PC world. Once it multiplied the value of the mainframe by factor 2..3 for me (analysing and manipulating large tables of 65 columns and 20'000 rows and more). Find a 997 pages user manual here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~pipeline/#TheBook
If you manage to migrate this concept, you will go down in history like Steve Wozniak for example. Others tried it years ago, alas the links are dead today.
Edit: Just removed my Pipeline examples, someone told me, there is a PC replacement, alas 'IBM Internal Use Only'. So it does not exist for me.