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.

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

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].

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.