OSSD Project Presentations

This week we were able to learn about some of the Open Source projects that have are classmates have contributed. It was interesting to hear about all of the projects and the diverse range topics they covered. So far, from the presentations it seems like a lot of students have been able to contribute by doing translations for their open source projects. This seems like a great way to contribute especially if you are familiar with other languages. I think my favorite part of the presentations was learning about what everyone learned and how they solved the problems they encountered. I think we have all learned that it is extremely important to talk to the maintainers of a repository before working on a pull request or creating a new feature. It is always good to get confirmation on something you are working before you start.

Oppia Contributions Progress

This week, Karishma, Selam, and I have been working really hard to get our PR accepted. The Oppia community have given us a lot of feedback, and we have spent a significant amount of time trying to implement all the changes. From looking at the changes and comments from the Oppia team, I have come to realize how detailed and nuanced code is. We ran into a few major bugs this week as well. After merging the Oppia updates with our branch, we realized that our site was no longer loading on the demo site. After digging through the Oppia code and analyzing our own, we were able to successfully solve these issues.

Final Thoughts for Semester

Since this is our last week of classes, I have been reflecting on everything I have learned throughout the semester. Before taking class, I was not aware that there was a large community of coders working on meaningful project and were willing to welcome newcomers. I have found that many of the Open source communities are extremely friendly and welcoming. Everyone on the Oppia team has been extremely kind and helpful to our group. Thorughout this experience I have also been able to improve my coding skills. Before taking this class, I had never built a website. From this class I was able to improve my HTML, CSS, and Javascript skills. From working on the Oppia database, I have gotten more familiar with reading code written by others. From all the classes that I have taken in my undergraduate career, I can honestly say that this class has been the most rewarding. It has allowed me to contribute to code and collaborate with a large community. I know that the skills I have learned in this class will be helpful to me in the future.