User:Abdallah Elshamy

A: An introduction

• My name is Abdallah Khaled Elshamy, a student from Egypt. I am a hard-working person who is passionate about his work. I am a senior undergraduate student studying computer and systems engineering at the faculty of engineering - Ain Shams University.
  • Languages I speak: Arabic (native) and English (advanced).
  • I have a good background in mathematics (ODEs, linear algebra, numerical analysis, and calculus), electronic and electric circuits, and computer science.
• Google Summer of Code is an excellent opportunity for a student like me to work with other developers on sophisticated software that has a lot of users. I hope to become a better and more experienced developer and to hone my soft skills by collaborating with the developers/maintainers of Octave.
  • I participated in GSoC 2020 with GNU Octave.
• I used Octave a lot as an open-source alternative to MATLAB. It was extremely helpful for me as a student. Thus, I want to help in enhancing and adding to this important project.

C: Contact

• Username on Savannah, Username on Octave Discourse, and Nickname on IRC: Abdallah_Elshamy
• I live in Cairo (UTC+2). my location won't change over GSoC duration.
• I usually split my working hours to regain my focus so I code from 06.00 to 10.00 and from 12.00 to 17.00

E: Coding experience

• I have a good knowledge of C++ and used it in many projects.
• I have been using Octave/MATLAB for about three years. I am familiar with some packages like: Control and Signals. I wrote many m-scripts and used Simulink.
• I have a good knowledge of Qt and made two University projects using it.
• I have a good knowledge of Python and a fair knowledge of Java.
• I am comfortable with working with team and worked with many teams in university projects.
• Last GSoC, I Worked on a project​ that enriched GNU Octave with built-in support​ for JSON. I developed functions to encode/decode JSON using​ C++​ and unit tests using ​Octave. My project​ was integrated into the main repository of GNU Octave[1].
• Other contributions can be found here[2].

F: Feeling fine

• I am familiar with IRC and used it to get advice.
• I am familiar with mailing list and subscribed to it.
• I used Mercurial to submit a patch and have a good experience with other version control systems like git.
• I built Octave using make tool and was able (with the help of the maintainers) to add functions to the build system.
• What will make me actively stay in the community that I want to help in developing Octave as it helped me in my study. besides, I believe that I will learn a lot from this.

O: Only out of interest

• I heard about Octave approximately two years ago in my college as an open source alternative for MATLAB since we have projects that used MATLAB and we needed a software with similar capabilities.
• The first question concerning Octave I could not find an answer to rather quickly was how to add to the build system. With some searching and help from IRC channel and maintainers I was able to solve it.

P: Prerequisites

• I use Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS.
• I own this machine and have full (sudo) access to it. I can install any new software on it.
• I will be able to access internet connection, a computer with my progressing work on any time on the day.

S: Self-assessment

• Criticism is greatly important and highly appreciated by me as it allows me to learn from other's experiences. To make the best of it I prefer it to:
  • Be as specific as possible.
  • Be supported with examples.
  • Use clear language and avoid ambiguity.
  • Be given in points so I can track my improvement in a better way.

• I prefer to discuss changes and to have a good vision about them before starting to code. Surely, all the details may not be clear and need further search but having a good general view about the system helps a lot and directs your search and your efforts to fruitful paths.
• Prototypes definitely helps you understand what you are trying to do so coding and modifying them (with the risk to throw them away) may be useful to have a better understanding and a better implementation of the requirements.

Y: Your task

• I chose JSON encode/decode project.
• My project will focus on creating MATLAB compatible jsonencode and jsondecode functions. This involves proper documentation of the work and unit tests to ensure the correctness of the implementation
• This is my elaborated proposal [3]
• A detailed timeline is provided on the elaborated proposal. My milestones will be:
  • Deliver the test suite.
  • Deliver jsondecode.
  • Deliver jsonencode.