Hello Readers
The past month has been full of activities, GSoC application, assignments, exams, and desperate waiting for results(GSoC). I'd like to emphasize more upon my application for gsoc, the proposal, waiting for results, and the RESULT.
As I approached the mid of March and GSoC proposal deadline neared(25th March), I came to a realization, a horrific one, I HAD NOT EVEN SELECTED A PROJECT I WAS GOING TO APPLY FOR. Most applicants, and even my friends had finalized their projects and had had lengthy discussions with the mentors. I felt it was the end of my GSoC journey, and felt that yes it was fun contributing to GNU Mailman,BUT my dreams of GSoC were going to be shattered.
As one last measure to save the sinking ship, I went through the project list once more, and found Message Queue based Email archiver. Now this was completely new to me, I had mostly worked in the Mailman core area, not the email archiving part. But with no options left, I went through the whole Mailman architecture, understood where and how archiving is being done and what the project could mean. After this only, I contacted the project mentor, Florian (a wonderful person as I would find out). I did so keeping in mind the little time left, and to make my conversation with the mentor more fruitful, since discussing a project with little background isn't really an effective way to work.
Approaching Florian made me feel more confident about the possibility of still having a chance at GSoC. He seemed interested about my application, and liked that I had done some homework before approaching him. Now it was time for more intense action, next 4-5 days were spent understanding what message queues are, what backends are available and what they offer. This involved going through pycon talks, approaching seniors(Thanks to Nehal and Anhad) who had some experience with this, and reading articles and documentations.
Now with just 3 days left for proposal deadline, I became more anxious, my proposal hadn't even been drafted yet! Also I need to get it reviewed by mentors and seniors who had been through the drill.
One thing I learnt - Writing proposal requires a very clear idea of the project and the existing architecture (that is when you genuinely want to write a good proposal). Thus while drafting mine, I had to again go over a lot of things, and ensure I really had a good idea of things involved. It took me while 2 days to complete the draft, and now it was time for reviews.
OOPS!! The timeline I proposed is crappy! Also I hadn't clearly mentioned the minimum viable product the deliverables from the project. Mentors and seniors pointed out that the timeline I had developed was not practical. It required a whole lot of thinking and asking for advice from seniors to get that straight. Also, I added what I thought should be finally with a thumbs up from mentors, I submitted the proposal and hoped for the best.(That night after the proposal deadline, me and my friends decided to go for a walk, which turned into a long one, longer than what was comfortable, crap! we walked for around 15 kms)
Acads resumed, struggled with assignments, and thought about the results, FOR A MONTH!! That was tiresome. I felt it was indeed fun to have applied for GSoC, and I had worked hard. Now even if I wasn't going to be selected, i would not have had any regrets. It had certainly given me enough experience to crack it the next year, and exposed me to the beautiful world of open source community.
Result day, I was excited and a bit nervous the whole day. My whole group of friends had applied, and we all were anxiously going over the gsoc irc channel for any updates. Finally result time. SELECTED!!! YAY. It was a dream come true. Another friend had also cracked it. I was on cloud nine. Now as the customary celebration on my college for any achievement and birthday is, I was given GPL. Don't ask for the full form, it just means you are gonna receive the spanking of your life by your friends, followed by a juice treat at the canteen.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my friends who kept me motivated(Motwani, Battan, Chenoo and Sanket), seniors(esp, Bhavesh Goyal, Ghaisas, Nehal and Anhad) who helped me out at various points of this journey, and people at GNU Mailman who accomodated me doubts and discussions and guided me.
Next post, I am going to share the particulars of the proposal I wrote, till then here's the final draft -
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-ElRY-7IF4IlTqK_h6JAVCOFgJsant_dMTjGJKgxBV4/edit?usp=sharing
The past month has been full of activities, GSoC application, assignments, exams, and desperate waiting for results(GSoC). I'd like to emphasize more upon my application for gsoc, the proposal, waiting for results, and the RESULT.
As I approached the mid of March and GSoC proposal deadline neared(25th March), I came to a realization, a horrific one, I HAD NOT EVEN SELECTED A PROJECT I WAS GOING TO APPLY FOR. Most applicants, and even my friends had finalized their projects and had had lengthy discussions with the mentors. I felt it was the end of my GSoC journey, and felt that yes it was fun contributing to GNU Mailman,BUT my dreams of GSoC were going to be shattered.
As one last measure to save the sinking ship, I went through the project list once more, and found Message Queue based Email archiver. Now this was completely new to me, I had mostly worked in the Mailman core area, not the email archiving part. But with no options left, I went through the whole Mailman architecture, understood where and how archiving is being done and what the project could mean. After this only, I contacted the project mentor, Florian (a wonderful person as I would find out). I did so keeping in mind the little time left, and to make my conversation with the mentor more fruitful, since discussing a project with little background isn't really an effective way to work.
Approaching Florian made me feel more confident about the possibility of still having a chance at GSoC. He seemed interested about my application, and liked that I had done some homework before approaching him. Now it was time for more intense action, next 4-5 days were spent understanding what message queues are, what backends are available and what they offer. This involved going through pycon talks, approaching seniors(Thanks to Nehal and Anhad) who had some experience with this, and reading articles and documentations.
Now with just 3 days left for proposal deadline, I became more anxious, my proposal hadn't even been drafted yet! Also I need to get it reviewed by mentors and seniors who had been through the drill.
One thing I learnt - Writing proposal requires a very clear idea of the project and the existing architecture (that is when you genuinely want to write a good proposal). Thus while drafting mine, I had to again go over a lot of things, and ensure I really had a good idea of things involved. It took me while 2 days to complete the draft, and now it was time for reviews.
OOPS!! The timeline I proposed is crappy! Also I hadn't clearly mentioned the minimum viable product the deliverables from the project. Mentors and seniors pointed out that the timeline I had developed was not practical. It required a whole lot of thinking and asking for advice from seniors to get that straight. Also, I added what I thought should be finally with a thumbs up from mentors, I submitted the proposal and hoped for the best.(That night after the proposal deadline, me and my friends decided to go for a walk, which turned into a long one, longer than what was comfortable, crap! we walked for around 15 kms)
Acads resumed, struggled with assignments, and thought about the results, FOR A MONTH!! That was tiresome. I felt it was indeed fun to have applied for GSoC, and I had worked hard. Now even if I wasn't going to be selected, i would not have had any regrets. It had certainly given me enough experience to crack it the next year, and exposed me to the beautiful world of open source community.
Result day, I was excited and a bit nervous the whole day. My whole group of friends had applied, and we all were anxiously going over the gsoc irc channel for any updates. Finally result time. SELECTED!!! YAY. It was a dream come true. Another friend had also cracked it. I was on cloud nine. Now as the customary celebration on my college for any achievement and birthday is, I was given GPL. Don't ask for the full form, it just means you are gonna receive the spanking of your life by your friends, followed by a juice treat at the canteen.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my friends who kept me motivated(Motwani, Battan, Chenoo and Sanket), seniors(esp, Bhavesh Goyal, Ghaisas, Nehal and Anhad) who helped me out at various points of this journey, and people at GNU Mailman who accomodated me doubts and discussions and guided me.
Next post, I am going to share the particulars of the proposal I wrote, till then here's the final draft -
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-ElRY-7IF4IlTqK_h6JAVCOFgJsant_dMTjGJKgxBV4/edit?usp=sharing
Drafting 2 days before deadline is gambling, though it comes out to be worthfull with a walk, a "walk longer then comfortable" ;) good-luck
ReplyDelete15kms. Indeed, a walking to remember
ReplyDelete