User:PiyushJain

A: An introduction

• Please describe yourself in three sentences, one of them regarding your current studies.

  I am a second year undergraduate student in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Guwahati. I am a keen competitive programmer. I have decent experience in development projects as part of course and some competitions. 

• • Which languages do you speak?

  I am totally comfortable in speaking English and Hindi.

• • What's your overall background? The general field you work in or are studying, e.g. computer science, physics, artificial intelligence, control theory...

  As stated, I am a student of Computer Science and Engineering.

• Why do you want to participate in the Google Summer of Code? What do you hope to gain by doing so?

  GSoC is probably the biggest global program which gives students an opportunity to dive into the world of Open Source. I can't get a better platform to learn and contribute significantly.

  I am pretty sure that working under such great mentors and for such aspired projects, it will be the best learning experience for me.

  As I am planning to give my full summer'17 (almost 3 months) with full effort, I am confident about the positivity of the outcome.

• • Please also describe your previous experience with the GSoC, if any. Includes any community-bonding, mentor experience or application, not necessarily accepted. We use this subquestion to identify which students are unfamiliar with how the program goes, providing further support. It has no negative impact on your rating!

  No, I have no previous experience with GSoC.

• Why are you choosing Octave?

  I got to know about Octave last year only when I started Machine Learning course of Andrew Ng online. Till then , I only knew abut Matlab. But when I first used Octave, I found that it can do almost everything which Matlab can (as far as I have used).I was pretty happy to know that there is such a free open source software, so when I found a project in this year's GSoC on Octave, I was pretty interested to contribute to the project and make Octave more better, as far as I can.

C: Contact

• Please state the (unique and identical where possible) nick you use on IRC and any other communication channel related to Octave. We really want unique nicks. You might want to bold it.

  piyushjain on Nabble.

• Which time zone do you live in? Will that change over GSoC duration? Perhaps DST adjustment or a relocation. Note that both UTC and GMT are not aware of daylight saving time! Please state UTC+x or -x.

  UTC+5.5 (Indian Standard Time)

• Please state the timeframe (in UTC+0) when you feel most comfortable working during GSoC. Where are your time buffers? Example: I usually code around 9.00 to 18.00 and could also try to start earlier (~7.00) for few days ;-)

  I am comfortable to work between 8:00 and 16:00 and could also extend upto ~18:00 for few days (UTC). 

E: Coding experience

This part is one of the more important ones in your application. You are allowed to be as verbose as you want, as long as you stay on topic ;-)

• Please describe your experience with C++, Octave or Matlab m-scripts, OpenGL and Qt.

  I am very comfortable with C++. Actually, C++ is the language I use during competitive coding and I prefer it as my first choice always. I have experience with STLs which I use much frequently and I have knowledge about Object-oriented approach. I have implemented some basic advanced data structures in C++.

  Octave is the language I used during my ML course online. I used to solve all the programming assignments in Octave which were mostly based on implementing the ML algorithms from scratch. 

  I have no experience in OpenGL and Qt.

• Please describe your experience with other programming languages.

  Python : Python is the language which I used mostly in my development projects. I have experience of using Python frameworks such as Django and Flask. I also find it interesting for web scrapping and also for data pre-processing for ML.
  

• Please describe your experience with being in a development team. Do you have experience working with open source or free projects?

  I have worked in teams for various projects as part of my course and some competitions. Currently, I am working on developing a chat bot. I am also working on two other projects in group this semester. Although, I don't have experience in Open Source projects.

• Please describe the biggest project you have written code for and what you learned by doing so. Also describe your role in that project over time.

  I developed a web portal , an online No-dues system for campus students. It was basically a Python project. I did the whole project myself.

• Please state the commits and patches you already contributed to Octave. This question (one of the most important parts by the way) is the only part of your application our wiki admins will edit for you even after the application deadline. Code sometimes speaks louder than many words do.

  I wrote a function for Union of two Polygons for Octave by using Clipper Library. It was written in C++.

F: Feeling fine

• Please describe (in short) your experience with the following tools: We only use this question to determine where you need guidance, not for rating! We by no means expect you to be familiar with all of these and you'll won't necessarily need them while working with us.
  • IRC and mailing lists

  Quite helpful.

• • Mercurial or other source code management systems

  I use Guthub generally.  

• • Mediawiki or other wiki software

  No experience.

• • make, gcc, gdb or other development tools

  As I mostly work on Ubuntu, I have used gcc quite often for compiling my source codes. I haven't used make or gdb tools that much.

• What will make you actively stay in our community after this GSoC is over? You can also tell us after applications close and we'll happily try to fulfill :-)

  As Octave is quite helpful for beginner ML enthusiasts like me, and due to its simple and easy syntax, I guess I would love to be in touch with Octave as a user and as a contributor.

O: Only out of interest

• Did you ever hear about Octave before?

  Yes, of course.

• • If so, when and where? How far have you been involved already?

  I heard about it from Mr. Andrew Ng in his Machine learning Introductory course. I am using Octave for almost a year for my basic machine Learning exercises.

P: Prerequisites

• Please state the operating system you work with.

  I mostly work on Ubuntu (i.e. Linux kernel). Although, I have a dual boot system with Windows alongside.

• • If you have access to more than one, please state them and the conditions under which you are granted this access.

  I have full access to both.

• Please estimate an average time per day you will be able to access
  • an internet connection

   I can access Internet at any time of the day and for any duration.

• • a computer

   I can access Computer at any time of the day and for any duration.

• • a computer with your progressing work on

   I can access it at any time of the day and for any duration.

• Please describe the degree to which you can install new software on computers you have access to.

   I have full liberty for that.

S: Self-assessment

• Please describe how useful criticism looks from your point of view as committing student.

  Not being bookish, but my personal experience is that you cannot improve upon yourself until you take any kind of criticism positively and extract the best out of it for yourself.

• How autonomous are you when developing:
  • Do you like to discuss changes intensively and not start coding until you know what you want to do?

   Yes, as part of my Software Engineering Course, I learnt about the importance of pre-documentation like Software Requirement Specification documents and Design Documents before starting to code for any software. 

• • Do you like to code a proof of concept to 'see how it turns out', modifying that and taking the risk of having work thrown away if it doesn't match what the project or original proponent had in mind?

   I may opt that approach for some small sub-task of the [project but I won't prefer to do a project if I had to just 'write and test' for the whole project. As I said, I like the approach that I first figure out the whole in-and-out of the requirement of the project and then start coding.

Y: Your task

• Did you select a task from our list of proposals and ideas?

  Yes.

• • If yes, what task did you choose? Please describe what part of it you especially want to focus on if you can already provide this information. Please also wiki-link the page for your elaborated proposal here.

  I have chosen the project: Mapping or Geometry package: Implement boolean operations on polygons. I read about the Clipper Library which is to be used for this project. 

• Please provide a rough estimated timeline for your work on the task. This should include the GSoC midterms and personal commitments like exams or vacation ("non-coding time"). If possible, include two or three milestones you expect.

  May 15 - May 31 : Go through the previous implementations in depth and read the documentations of the libraries thoroughly. 
  June 1 - July 15 : Implement all the required functionalities of Boolean operations on Polygons and incorporate it into GNU Octave.
  July 18 -  August 5 : Final debugging and documentation.