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GSoC All Final Reports
Janice Niemeir edited this page Jan 31, 2018
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Teodor Ciuraru 2016
Shruti Gupta 2014
GSoC with Systers was a great experience. Not only that I improved my coding skills, but I also developed a sense of delivering high quality material. Following my mentor, Bruno Henriques, I realized that there is always room for improvement and that attention to detail is not that easy to achieve. Overall, I think GSoC is an experience that most developers need to go through. As a developer, you need to contribute to the Open-source community and learn to embrace the spirit of it.
- Improved Malaria by adding new features (User Profile, Games, Achievements, new Setup Screen, Pill reminding mechanism and a Today Widget for the app).
- Advanced my coding skills and acknowledge what I don't know right now about software engineering.
- Learned to contribute to the Open-Source community (GitHub, repositories, pull requests).
- Improved my attention to details skill and learned to work under deadlines.
- Adding new features had introduced hidden bugs that were later found, but were not that easy to repair.
- Returning from holiday had been stressful because I ran behind schedule a little.
- Synchronizing the app with the Malaria Android was hard and a project manager would have helped us a little more.
- Improved coding skills overall.
- Learned to contribute to Open-Source.
- A feeling of satisfaction by managing to deliver the project.
- Time management skills.
Totally worth it. Recommend it to every developer!
Malaria iOS GitHub
My contributions
My GitHub
My LinkedIn
GSoC - 2014: Quite a summer! This was indeed an awesome experience. It saddens me though that it has to get over, but that is how it works! However, I hope the collaboration continues through these or other projects.
The entire summer can be summed up as follows.
- Learned a new Skill - iOS
- When I applied for GSoC-2014, I had no idea about iOS development. One who had never even opened Xcode. But after this great summer, and the continuous guidance of Matt, Shanu and Finda, Rose, and everyone(not to forget, Shelagh), I have been able to develop an application, which I hope, would soon be out to serve its purpose.
- Was able to get most of the functionality
- Although I have not been able to deliver the complete functionality that was required, I have been able to produce most of the features. For the remaining, I have done my research and soon would be in a position to implement them as well.
- Maintained good peer-relations
- Throughout this program, I have grown not only in the technical front, but at the social front as well. Weekly meetings with mentors, bi-weekly team demos, and regular interaction with all those involved, have helped me understand different perspectives and also remote team dynamics. This would definitely help me as I go ahead in my life.
- Video presentation at a Peace Corps Medical Conference
- I had created a video demo of the application for the Peace Corps(shown above). This video was presented at a Medical Conference. That and our hangout (air)s have given the project a lot of exposure.
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New to iOS development
- When I had applied for Google Summer of Code 2014, I made my proposal for the Malaria Android Project. However, there were two of us selected, Aneke and myself, both had applied for Android. Since the project required an iOS counterpart, Rose had to delegate one of the Candidates to iOS. As I was willing to learn a new skill, after discussion with Aneke, I took up iOS. Initially, I was excited but scared, since the time frame of 2 months is the deciding factor in this case. I took the risk, and I am happy that I did!
- I started development using my Linux machine, and a Virtual environment. However, it got impossible to continue because of frequent crashes and slow speed. So, after unsuccessfully trying for almost two weeks into the program, I switched to a MacBook, that really helped me steer forward. Although, it was difficult to cover up for those lost two weeks.
- The entire flow between tabbarcontrollers and pageviewcontroller was a bit difficult to understand. However, my mentors helped me and I was able to get the flow after struggling for a while. Also, the changeLabel functionality took some time.
- Most of my challenges were around being new to iOS. Here are the resources that helped me:
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http://www.bignerdranch.com/we-write/objective-c-programming.html
- A new skill & A great network, new friends
- Definitely, this is a very important item in my list of take-aways! Having started as an Android person, I am happy that I know what iOS has to offer!
- Through the course of the program, I have made new friends and created a great network. Working across timezones turned out to be an awesome experience!
- Exposure & learning remote collaboration
- The project gave a lot of exposure in terms of development best practices, along with organisational processes. Matt and Shanu took care of my coding requirements while Finda and Rose were there to remind us that we were following the norms of the organisation, and were on track.
- The project definitely taught me how to work with remote teams, and how to collaborate with people in different time zones. The weekly meetings, the bi-weekly demos, and the team meetings, along with email-interaction was great! This would go a long way.
- Became part of a great community - Systers & a project that is doing good to humanity
- I became part of a great community - Systers, and I hope I would always be able to contribute to it in any capacity. The community has experienced people whom I can reach out to at any point of time, and there are people with whom I would be able to share my experiences and help them.
- The project in intrinsically rewarding in the sense that this app, once launched, would help save people from a disease. So in a way, this app would be serving humanity, and the satisfaction is the take-away!
- Splendid!
- The overall experience of working with Systers was simply great! Although there were times, when I found it difficult to keep working, the motivation never died, and everyone around only enhanced it. I had with me the excellent mentorship of Matt and Shanu, the smooth management skills of Finda, the never ending support of my fellow team mate, Aneke, and the availability of Rose and all other team members at all times. This kept me going! This was a great summer, and we all have come a long way. I am sad that this is getting over, but I hope the collaboration is something that continues.
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Link to GitHub page and to Systers project repo page.
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Link to wiki page where status reports are located.
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Link to personal page.
- Matt = Matthew Mathias
Shanu = Shanu Salunke
Rose = Rosario Robinson
Finda = Ihudiya Finda Ogburu
Aneke = Aneke Chimdindu