A breakable toy is a personal utility written primarily for its author. Its creation is designed as an exercise to enable its author to explore creating something using an unfamiliar technology or technique in order to improve their skills.
Breakable toys are often reimplementations of existing programs.
Since the goal is an increased understanding of how to apply a technology to real world problems, the fact that there are other, superior, implementations isn't a concern.
It is actually an advantage as it gives the author the freedom to experiment as the only one who is relying on the program performing its intended purpose is the one directly using it.
If one develops a habit of creating breakable toys, they will over time have developed their own custom set of tools uniquely suited.
Ideas for breakable toys:
* A personal wiki
* A newsreader
* An editor
* A collection manager (pdfs, games, videos, etc)
* An archiver (back up files from one location to another)