CodeGym/Java Blog/Random/Building a Powerful Coding Portfolio. Great Side Project ...
Author
Pavlo Plynko
Java Developer at CodeGym

Building a Powerful Coding Portfolio. Great Side Project Ideas for Java Developers

Published in the Random group
members
Having a well-crafted coding portfolio is quite important for programmers, especially in the very beginning of their professional careers. A coding portfolio allows you to showcase real examples of your work and prove you have the knowledge and skills a Java developer is required to have, which would significantly increase your chances for a job offer. Building a Powerful Coding Portfolio. Great Side Project Ideas for Java Developers - 1When going through the CodeGym course, you will get a good taste of working individually on comprehensive mini-projects, and those simple pieces of software will make a good start for a programming portfolio. But as you progress, you would certainly need to work on more comprehensive side projects, and completing them successfully can be tricky for a number of reasons. Quite often the hard part starts right away when you need to come up with an idea for your project, which should be simple enough for a Junior Java developer to manage, but at the same time interesting to work on and with a potential to turn into a popular and useful tool. Here are some of such ideas that you can adopt, develop further and use to create your unique side project.

1. Smart city / tourism application

Map-based applications with various kinds of information about a city or other types of areas are getting increasingly popular nowadays, as they can provide users with relevant information about what they are looking for tied to their location, and instantly connect customers to businesses nearby. It can be a smart city app with general information about places such as restaurants, stores, transportation hubs, entertainment venues, and so on. Or a specialized app for certain groups of people: students, job seekers, food lovers, elderly people or couples just to name a few examples. A tourism application based on the same principle is another option. Now, even though there are long-established global leaders in this market, such as Google Maps, there is still a huge space for niche applications specialized in specific places or serving certain needs, while the accessibility of technologies makes it relatively easy to build such an app.

Skills required for such a project:

  • Expertise in Java (Kotlin);
  • Knowledge of Android Developer Tools and Android SDK concepts;
  • Experience with SQL;
  • Knowledge of IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio or one of other IDEs;
  • Basic knowledge of XML, databases, APIs.

Ideas for similar projects:

  • Hotel discovery and booking app;
  • Online tourist guide;
  • Fitness spots discovery app;
  • Restaurants and street food online guide.

2. Online quiz / survey management system

A Java-based online system that allows users to conduct quiz tests, competitions and surveys is another good idea for a side project that is not very demanding for your skills as a Java developer but provides you with quite a lot of space for creativity in the implementation of the project. Such a system would be applicable by organizations looking to conduct secure and private surveys among their employees or customers, as well as by academic institutions and all kinds of organizations who are using quizzes on a regular basis. Your system should make it easy to launch a quiz or a survey and review the results. It would also be good if your system will be integrated with email to send results and notifications to admins and users in real time.

Skills required for such a project:

  • Expertise in Java;
  • Good knowledge of databases (MS SQL server, MySQL);
  • Experience with J2EE;
  • Experience with IDEs (IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse).

Ideas for similar projects:

  • Employee skills testing system;
  • Competitive quiz-based game;
  • Survey plugin for websites;
  • Online students examination system.

3. Email client / email automation system

Creating a specialized email application that makes it easier to manage emails or add an extra level of security to the email communication would be another relatively easy to implement idea for a side project. Nowadays the majority of people are using browser-based email services, such as Gmail, Hotmail, and others. They are not very secure and often lack the functionality to customize the way users can sort, view and send emails. Which provides you with the opportunity to create a unique email client offering some special features. Such clients would be applicable by businesses and organizations looking to protect their email communications against hackers or just to automate a number of mundane email-related processes.

Skills required for such a project:

  • Expertise in Java;
  • Knowledge of Java Mail API;
  • Understanding SMTP, POP3 and other email-related protocols;
  • Experience with databases.

Ideas for similar projects:

  • Email marketing service;
  • Email security and monitoring system;
  • Email notifications plugin.

4. Healthcare management system

Various medical management and automation systems are being implemented by all kinds of healthcare institutions on a massive scale these days because they allow them to automate multiple processes such as booking appointments with doctors, as well as to organize and better protect data, including medical records, prescriptions, lab reports, etc. Normally, a healthcare management system would consist of two major modules: the doctor’s module and the patient’s module. The doctor’s module provides users with access to records, appointments schedule, reports and other data. While the patient’s module allows the patient to choose a doctor, book an appointment and view his/her medical record. This project idea gives you an opportunity to create a niche healthcare management solution meant for a specific kind of medical institutions, such as ophthalmology clinics, beauty clinics, rehabilitation centers, and so on.

Skills required for such a project:

  • Expertise in Java;
  • Knowledge of JavaScript;
  • Familiarity with databases, data mining tools;
  • Good knowledge of Java frameworks.

Ideas for similar projects:

  • Hospital management system;
  • Pharmacy management system;
  • Prescriptions management system.

5. Library management system

A library management system would be applicable by educational, governmental and commercial institutions who maintain their own libraries. Integrating such a system makes it easy to organize the data and automate a whole range of processes that are done manually by the majority of librarians to this day. The system would store all the information about the books in the library, records about issued and retired books, as well as their physical location within the library. You can also add various smart features to a library management system, such as suggestions of similar books or books written by the same author, book ratings, smart search for library books based on different criteria, and so on.

Skills required for such a project:

  • Expertise in Java;
  • Good knowledge of databases (MS SQL server, MySQL);
  • Experience with J2EE;
  • Experience with IDEs (IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse).

Ideas for similar projects:

  • Library automation system;
  • Documentation management system;
  • Digital records management system.

6. Integrated online banking system

Online banking applications are quite common today and customers are used to making routine banking operations, such as money withdrawal, bills payments, card transfers, and so on, via an online app. Considering that each bank has its own mobile application, it may be a good idea to build an integrated banking system that would store the information from a number of customer’s accounts in different banks. It can show users their account details for each card, such as account types, available balance, account statements, etc. Of course, a system of this kind would need to be secure as much as possible with user’s data protected from hackers.

Skills required for such a project:

  • Expertise in Java;
  • Expertise in J2EE;
  • Experience with IDEs (IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse);
  • Knowledge of secure connection and end-to-end encryption technologies;
  • Good knowledge of databases (MS SQL server, MySQL).

Ideas for similar projects:

  • Finance management system;
  • Digitals payments app;
  • eWallet system.
What do you think about these project ideas? What kinds of Java side projects have you been working on and how successfully? Let us know in the comments section below!
Comments
  • Popular
  • New
  • Old
You must be signed in to leave a comment
This page doesn't have any comments yet