My friendly comrade aen has started a blog where he's developing a suite of code similar to the stuff you'd see in Sphere or Verge, only using modern development practices. If someone asked me for help creating a game engine, I could do worse than suggest he start with Choose the Force. His clarity of presentation and wit (as well as the subject matter of course) have brought it into my top 5 favorite daily reads. Excerpt:

There is a term in software development known as "class explosion," which is what you get when the programmer tries to model "too much" or tries to take into account more factors than are practical when designing a piece of software. This was rampant when OO first came on the scene. "Object orientation? Oh my god, it's the best thing since sliced cheese! Sliced cheese is an object, you know..."