For our own gain? Hardly. Tasks #1 and #2 are pretty useless, and the program for task #3 contains far too much fluff to be useful in everyday life - all three are simply there to test his programming skills.

A programmer can have multiple things on the go - I'm currently programming an Ant-Farm, a drag-and-drop programming tool, and working on an assignment. I've done the first two tasks over the course of the first year of my degree, and when the final specification is decided, I'll also program the third task.

Some of my friends want me to program a couple of iPhone/iPod Touch apps for their gain, too.

Multiple projects keeps things from going stale.