History of OpenSource and Guest Speaker

This week, we had one class and one guest lecture. As a team, we also made some progress with our open source project. It is a very productive week.

getting to know the history of Open Source

In Monday’s lecture, we discussed the history of the concept of Open source. It is not a surprise to me that when the concept first came out, people are not used to it and it took a while for programmers to adjust. However, people gradually understood its power and started to apply it to different softwares. One of the application that surprised me the most is how Linux is developed.

When I think of operating systems, the first thing that comes to my mind is how intricate it is. With all the different tasks an operating system needs to complete, the scheduling algorithms, the resource and memory allocations, I believe it needs to be designed in a delicate manner. The logic behind it should be carefully constructed, and it is most likely to be done by a small group of people. However, just like the author is astonished, the appearance of Linux struct me as well. This made me look at Open Source in a different way, as it is able to be applied not only to open-minded and creative softwares, but also task-fulfilling and strict ones. This essentially made me realize how powerful open source developing can be.

Another topic of Monday’s lecture which interests me is whether passion should serve as the main productivity of a programmer. I have encountered circumstances that my passion for coding gradually reduced as time pass and more and more bugs appear. However, after the discussion we had in class, I realized that I am not alone. Many of my fellow classmates have experienced the same struggles. This give me more confidence in the future when I encounter difficulties with my program.

Guest Speaker

On Wednesday, Gil talked about his experience with open source in the industry. This talk was very helpful to me, as a newbie looking for job opportunities and general ways to contribute my passion and work to the coding society.

One thing that caught my attention is how Gil talked about what we could do as applicants to a tech company. Going to their GitHub, looking at their code, getting familiar with their framework and possibly fixing the current issues is a good place to start. It not only shows my interest in the company, but also demonstrates my ability and value to the company, as I am already helping them with some of their work. To be able to talk to the people in the interview about what I have done so far with their GitHub would be a big plus on my resume. This recommendation of Gil’s is very important, and I think I would practice this for my future job applications.

Our group project

This week, Eric reached out to the head of development at Gatsby, introducing us to the team and inquiring how we are able to contribute to the current project. The head of development responded to our email very quickly, suggesting that he welcomes us to the community and we could start to look at some of the issues marked “help needed”. I went to the GitHub page of Gatsby, and founded several issues that we could potentially work on. We will discuss the next step in our group meeting on next Monday.