Re: plan for google-summer code

[Daniel]

On Sun, Nov 2, 2014 at 7:08 PM, Carnë Draug <address@hidden> wrote:

On 31 October 2014 14:33, Daniel Liu <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I am pretty new to the list, but I have been using Octave for a long time,
> just for my own homework and school project.
>
> My current PhD project here in NYU involvs coding in C/ C++. I would like to
> start spending my spare time in
>
> a) contributing to the open-source communitiy in general here in long term
> on the hand, on the other, I would like to
> b) take part in the google summer code with any possible Octave project, for
> I noticed there were some very successful Octave project done in the past.
>
> So I want to know how I shall start? And what kind of knowledge/background
> is required to contribute to Octave develpment, and for the google summer
> 2015, respectively? Do I need a team for joining the google summer?
>
> A little about my background, I am still learning/improving programming
> skills; I know C/C++ in the level of school project, but no real industry
> experience. As a user, I have been on linux/mac system for more ten years
> and I am familiar with vi, gdb, make, awk, grep, etc utilities.
>
> Any comments, suggestions, and advice would be highly appreciated.

The best way to get involved is to use it. As you do so, you will inevitably
find something not so good (or maybe completely wrong).  Go and fix it.

It may be better to start by contributing to an Octave Forge package. These
resemble a collection of individual functions, and are much simpler to hack
on.  Pick a package that relates to your field and next time you need a
missing function, instead of working around it implement a Matlab compatible
version that you can then submit as patch.

Carnë

Thanks a lot for your suggestion. I am focusing on my two projects now. One is clusterring analysis of patient DNA chip result  and the other one is modelling based on graph theory. I will see what I can do in relation to Octave.

Daniel