Personal Time Capsule
Matt is much younger than I am. I would love to see "time capsules" of my earliest programming efforts, but they were many years and many systems ago, and I no longer have the source.* Something like Github did not exist when I began programming.
* - with the notable exception of a couple of things that I printed out on paper. Things stored electronically are now inaccessible on 5.25" floppy disks stuck somewhere in my attic. But a few things printed out on paper still survive.
I've done the same - I have a Java program that I did for a university course in 2008. It's probably the ugliest thing ever, but it has sentimental value.
I love looking back at the crummy things I've made[0]. It's the best way to see just how much you've learned. Not only the overall quality of the product, but little things, like refactoring abilities, readability, and following convention.
Sidenote: Aperture science logo? EDIT: WOW, Portal came out 5 years ago?!
I came here looking for an open source version of Apple's TimeCapsule. I left felling old: when I started writing my own code github didn't even exist!
A while back I created a script that reminds you about projects that you committed to some predefined period of time ago - a bit like Timehop[1], but for git commits. I've found it fun to see how my code (and my project interests!) have changed over time.