Hello World!!

This summer i got selected in GSOC’19 as a student in AboutCode organisation to work on ScanCode toolkitand create the distro packages for it.This might be a long ride so tighten up the seatbelts. :P

This is my first time blogging for GSoC.Pretty late for me to document my GSoC fun-learning-experiences,but better be late than never.

So,this all started in November when i had nothing to do and was bored with projects and college .So i had heard about the GSoC program earlier in my 2nd year and knew a little bit how it worked around.So there was one of my batchmate(now a good friend:p) Naveen you can mostly find him lingering around in coala and in some other orgs as well.He introduced me to this opensource world and told me it’s pretty good.So initially i was into the GSoC thing because of the BIG NAME and huge stipend we get and then rest of the benefits were coming in for me.So i started of with Linux-XIA and started to know the github world with opensource and got a little bit intrigued by interacting with the community.After some time i started exploring the projects of Linux-XIA but then the org list was announced by Google around Feb.

This left me point blank as Linux-XIA was not there .As kinda loved the experience of interacting with the community and aswell i was thinking my hardwork’s all lost and didn’t knew what to do so then again Naveen came in to rescue and kept alive my hopes of GSoC and helped me pick some more orgs(PCP,coreboot,wikimedia,Xpra) and try them out but nothing worked out for me as time went on but this opensource had it’s effect on me(dazzled :p).So I started kinda off loving it. So now some 20 odd days were left and then AboutCode stuck randomly and i joined the community and got the nice vibe and response from mentor (Phillipe Ombreddane) which kept me in (as i didn’t knew Python,Licensing).Till now i was sure there was no chance of me getting in as very less time was left and i was just here to learn and tried the organisation’s different projects/tools,then Naveen told me that you should atleast try and submit a proposal and get a better understanding about the whole thing.

Then i did research about the project and came up with a proposal finally a day or 2 before final submission deadline and asked the mentor to review.And then till the results i was there contributing and didn’t had hope to get selected but was making my small bit’s of contibution. And then the results were out which also Naveen informed me off (remember the day 6th May around 11:30pm) and that left me awestruck and it took me a day or 2 to sink in back into normal life.

That was a great feeling to be part of GSoC but i was scared whether i will be able to complete the project(which i had very less knowledge about) .Without much delay I started understanding the bits and pieces of the codebase and project related topics.There were times where i didn’t understood the document or code and did multiple reads and experimented but my “NEVER GIVE UP” attitude helped me get back. I will blog my project difficulties and related technicalities in some other blog (as it’s WIP).

I had many difficulties in my project and the approach I initially took was to read up enough documentation and do no commits till that point of time and then you go on to build a complete-perfect solution at one commit at a time but this Never Worked for me .And i do personally believe this way big goals are never achieved.Always we need to break things up into small pieces and work on them as in my case one small commit at a time gets the work done and help us build solutions or as my mentor says

“Get something working first and then go on iterating it at each step”.

And this leads to some of the great products as well.

As time went on in GSoC but the pressure grew on me.Handling everything simulataneously Placements,GSoC,Sem Exams was stressfull and then i didn’t knew what was happenin.I was full stressed up and never took a break which was the reason i lost track of many things and couldn’t sleep of also properly. Literally i was dreaming of solving the problems. That was when i should have taken a break but i didn’t and a major breakdown occurred and got me sick as well.This stopped me from getting the necessary work done and my mentor being a calm and super chill told me to take care and told project can be taken care later and lately i Thank my mentors and Naveen for supporting me and guiding me on to the right path.

And my mentor finally passed me in final phase of GSoC on the trust and assurance that atleast i will complete of my remaining work which i am currently completing off.

Having a great attitude and constantly coming back to problems solves them but with a break.

:)

Thanks a lot to hear me and for more insights u can ping me up :)…

And now the disqus’s waiting for some comments.