Something that I quickly realized and definitely love from my profession (I’m a System Engineer) is how easy and cheap is for us to create compared to other disciplines. I’m not talking about big commercial systems, if you want to build the next GitHub you won’t probably go far without some level of real money investment. I’m talking about create something, just because you are learning, trying a technology or building something to address a specific problem. At the very basics you only need a computer, the tools, time and focus.

Fortunately through time it was becoming easier and cheaper the access to technology. From hardware and also software perspective. For example in the .NET world not so long ago you needed a Visual Studio license for this kind of development, limited Express editions or alternative (very good) tools like SharpDevelop. Today you are not even tied to the Windows licensed platform anymore.

In that context and since I remember I always had one or several side projects in progress. Most of them never hit ‘production’ but the expression “The important thing is the journey, not the destination” is true in my case.

The Destination

POCs, MVPs, get to the RTM point.

The Journey

Have the opportunity to work on technologies years before I had the opportunity to work with them in a paid job (some of them I never had the opportunity). Not in particular order: TFS, Mercurial, Git, WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone applications, WebForms, ASP NET MVC, WebAPI, Continuous Integration/Delivery/Inspection, IIS configuration, VMs with different Linux distributions, AngularJS, Docker, .NET Core, SonarQube, real time functionality with SignalR, unit testing with mstest, xunit, etc etc

I learned a lot of .NET just by testing the latest framework features as POCs or take a new release as an excuse to upgrade a previous side project (or completely rewrite it). I remember to have TFS in a virtual machine on my 2GB of ram laptop. Installing Atlassian JIRA, Bamboo and Crucible in my media center. Implement a continuous integration process in TF Online (Now Visual Studio Team Services). Playing with Git (working with VS Express for Web) years before I have the opportunity to use it in a job environment. Deploy web applications to local VMs running different Windows Server versions. And again a long etcetera.

Also have to mention the countless medium/large systems designed in paper and implementing the latest technologies that never reached even the MVP level.

The Basement

The experience and learning is something that becomes part of you. But at some point last year (2017) I went down to my virtual basement where all the projects were archived. I took a look and realized, first that they were many of them, they were at different level of completeness, some of them still current, a good number outdated/obsolete but all representing hours or days of work. Finally they also share something: they were all there, hidden.

The Selection

I found zip files with code in backups disks, private repositories in Visual Studio Team Services (since 2012), Bitbucket (since 2014) and local TFS and Stash (later Bitbucket Server) instances.

From the application perspective I found C++ programs from early 2000 to ‘modern’ .NET web applications and rest api from 2017.

Near the end of 2017 I finished a list of the project I wanted to publish in GitHub. Initially I expected to have all of them migrated by the end of January 2018, then March, and then.. well, it took a little more time but it is done. Initially I started to review them, reorganize the code, implement some cleanups and refactors with ReSharper help, run SonarQube analysis and fix rules, add unit tests to increase coverage, etc. Then realized it will take me almost another ten years to finish so I published them with an original untouched branch and master with some level of reorder, cleanups and refactors (no SonarQube or code coverage improvement for most of them)

The Final Result

A curated list of twenty five projects from early 2007 to 2018 published on GitHub.

You may think that most of them are trash (and you are most probably right!) to me it was like an enjoyable time travel task and in some way gratifyingly like when you finish something that for some reason you postponed for a long time.

The List

They all share the ‘Legacy project’ repository description in GitHub

Update (2022): I removed them from Github to basically reduce de amount of repositories with no changes. You can download all this source code from here

2018

upictures
A .NET Core app to manage a picture collection. Like most of the applications in this list technologies: C#, .NET Core 2.1

2017

umovies
A collection of applications to remotely play and control media files
technologies: C#, .Net 4.5.2, SignalR 2.2.1, Entity Framework 6.1.3, SQL Server Express 2014

2016

ateam-docs
A best practices documentation site. An example implementation of a documentation continuous delivery schema.
technologies: sphinx-doc

undead-music
An application to create playlists and control the playback of music on remote computers in real time
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.5.2, Entity Framework 6.1, SignalR 2.2, SQL Server

upictures-net45
A web application that scan, process and allows easily search, tag and view pictures and videos from a media collection
technologies: C#, Entity Framework 6.1, SQL Server 2014

2015

bam-api
Using Atlassian Bamboo rest api it shows several best practices metrics
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.0

isofinder
Scan and index iso files allowing search and content download through a web application
technologies: C#, ASP NET MVC 5, SQL Server 2012, EntityFramework 6.1.3, .NET Framework 4.5, SQL Server

mentoring
A web application that help on the implementation of a company internal employee mentoring program
technologies: C#, ASP NET MVC 5, SQL Server 2012, EntityFramework 6, NET 4.5

usignalr-raspberry
It allows remotely play music on a Raspberry Pi
technologies: C#, Angularjs 1.2, MonoDevelop 5.5

winform-actions
An application that demo different Winforms desktop application functionalities
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.5

2014

soulstone-2
Allows to manage different hosts (which provides music), manage playlists and playback of files remotely
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.5, Entity Framework 6.1, SignalR 2.0, WebAPI 5.1, SQL Server

wcf-rest
An example of how to implement a REST api with WCF
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.5

2013

execution-engine
An intent to create a generic task execution library (I use it in other small projects)
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.0

file-scanner
A library that provides file system scan and analysis funtionality (I use in other projects like IsoFinder)
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.5

skype-call
A POC application, you click on a web application link and your home media center video call you using Skype
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.5, SignalR 1.0.1

2012

media-center
Responsive web application to remotely control playback of media files in a media center
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.5, SignalR 0.5.3, Entity Framework 5

2010

great-shot
An application to quickly select your best pictures
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.0

isomount
A wrapper of slysoft Virtual Clone Drive to quickly mount iso files
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.0

xgamer
A GUI to play retro games
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 4.0

2009

lucky-dev
A WPF application that connects to Microsoft TFS and help you select the best code reviewer candidate from the team according to code reviews already assigned
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 3.5

2008

am
An application to play mp3 files with full keyboard control. Almost no UI, intended to be a good coding sessions companion with no disruption of the current task
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 3.5

arg-holidays
It connects to a WCF service and allows you to see information of upcoming (or past) Argentinian holidays
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 3.5

nacion
A simple web application to see information about a mortgage loan, a simulator to estimate interest earned, etc. Specifically instantiated with my mortgate loan at that moment.
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 3.5

soulstone
A Silverlight application to play music in your browser
technologies: C#, Silverlight 2, .NET Framework 3.5

2007

countdown
A simple countdown application for my wedding
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 2.0

mp3-searcher
Scan an index Windows network shared folders looking for mp3 files. Then it allows to search and play them
technologies: C#, .NET Framework 2.0