Well, as you no doubt realized, you can do the majority of experimenting one box, since the IP address determines if it's a local or remote socket. That helps a lot, if you don't happen to have more than one machine sitting around your house.

I'd probably start by writing a simple client server application to play MP3s "remotely". You could setup the server to play the files, and use the client as a control panel type application.

Another application would be to write your own mini-web server. It doesn't have to do everything Apache does, just look for a GET, and return a page. Maybe gets the output of 'ps -eax', and display it as a web page. Or something similiar for diskspace utilization. Yes, there's a complete Perl based webserver, but that's not the point. You *want* to reinvent this wheel.

You could also write a chat program like 'talk' or 'write', but allow a secondary channel for sending/receiving files. Or better yet, if you need to learn Qt or GTK, write a two-player battleship program.

There's all sorts of cool things you could do if you turn on the mindset of 'What can I do remotely that I can't now that I'd be paid to play, er, continue my education with?'

--Chris

P.S. if none of these interest you, I can probably find you something around my boat I wanted automated with remote connections. The pay sucks, tho...

e-mail jcwren

In reply to (jcwren) Re: Advice: Network code experiments by jcwren
in thread Advice: Network code experiments by geektron

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