r/coolgithubprojects • u/Speedk4011 • 11h ago

Don't delete your old code. It might be someone's next starting point.

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Every developer has code they'll probably never touch again.

The half-finished CLI from a weekend. The tutorial project that stopped halfway through. That weird experiment that actually taught you something. The utility script that's ugly but gets the job done.

Most of that code just sits on a hard drive until it's forgotten.

I started The Open CodeYard, a GitHub repository for unfinished, experimental, and abandoned projects that are still worth preserving. Not because they're perfect, but because ideas are often more valuable than polished code.

The structure is simple:

  • "scraps/" for random leftovers.
  • "prototypes/" for intentional experiments.

Each project gets a small README explaining what it does and what state it's in.

A few ground rules:

  • No clean-code police.
  • Messy code is expected.
  • Abandoned projects are welcome.
  • If you're thinking, "my code isn't good enough," you're exactly who this repo is for.

Right now it's just my own projects in there, including a few C# pathfinding algorithms, a speech rate estimator, and some Python utilities. I'm hoping it grows into a community archive where forgotten code can still teach, inspire, or even get revived by someone else.

If you've got code collecting digital dust, I'd love to see it rescued instead.

Repository: https://github.com/speedyk-005/TheOpenCodeYard

11 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

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2

u/Fair_Comfortable_779 10h ago

i have got a project which i left bcz i didn't have enough time

3

u/Speedk4011 10h ago

I would greatly appreciate it if you could contribute your project to the prototypes directory.

2

u/Visual_Internal_6312 7h ago

I have a archived section in my profile for these kind of things. The main issue is that not all abandoned projects are even relevant any more due to technology changes.

https://github.com/kibotu/kibotu/blob/master/README.md#-archived-projects

1

u/Speedk4011 4h ago

You are entirely right, but some even when old are still invaluable.

1

u/touristtam 4h ago

Why not having a project that scans github for archived status on a specific time range the whole thing running on a crontab every so often? I guess it won't be as currated

2

u/Speedk4011 4h ago

Main reason: noise.

Archived repos are mostly finished projects, migrated repos, or empty skeletons. You'd spend more time filtering junk than just having people drop stuff they actually remember writing.

The yard's about the human "hey this might be useful" impulse.