User:Ivcore

Introduction

Hello, I'm Ivan Gonzalez Polanco, a Mechanical Engineering middler student at Simón Bolívar University, in Caracas, Venezuela. I've got a passion for programming, science and philosophy, and am interested in CFD and FEA. Spanish is my native language but I'm proficient in english.

Participating in the GSoC I hope to 1) learn more about the process of developing software while contributing to the community, 2) gain experience from and develop networks with people in the field, 3) get work experience I can add to my C.V. As this might (hopefully will) be my first time participating in a large project, as well as participating in the GSoC.

I've always been interested in computers, after various attempts in 2012 and 2013 to move (dual booting) from Windows to GNU/Linux, just recently (more mature and with more knowledge) went full-in and fell in love with the whole of it: the FOSSM, the UNIX philosophy, the sense of community and the passion for programming, for software. I chose Octave because in my sophomere year I saw Computational Mechanics I and II, and there we learned about Matlab and algorithms used in numerical analysis, being the last subject Differential Equations.

So now, with this opportunity to work in software development, to practice what I love, deepen the knowledge I was teached and help the community, all at the same time, I chose Octave. (Come to think of it, maybe one day next generations of M.E. students will learn using Octave instead of Matlab)

Contact

I'm not used to IRC yet but you can find me through ivcore there as well as in almost all social networks (say Github and Twitter)

My timezone is UTC -4:00 Caracas time, and on my free days I code from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. or from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. (UTC+0)

Coding experience

• I have zero experience with OpenGL, Qt and C++. I did two terms of Matlab m-scripts plus some minor works for friends in the career and I'm already getting to know Octave scripts.
• I've been working with Lua (LuaJIT) for over a year doing game development in my free time. Practiced a little of vanilla Javascript, and have done some scripts in Shell.
• I don't have any experience in a development team and in terms of open source and free projects I did a bug fix for a minor Atom Text Editor plugin.

• 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.
• 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.

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
  • Mercurial or other source code management systems
  • Mediawiki or other wiki software
  • make, gcc, gdb or other development tools
• 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 :-)

O: Only out of interest

• Did you ever hear about Octave before?
  • If so, when and where? How far have you been involved already?
  • If not, where would you expect or advise us to do advertising?
• What was the first question concerning Octave you could not find an answer to rather quickly? Of course more than one question can be stated. We try to improve based on this each year! Includes learning how to use it, code, website, GSoC application, …

P: Prerequisites

• Please state the operating system you work with.
  • If you have access to more than one, please state them and the conditions under which you are granted this access.
• Please estimate an average time per day you will be able to access
  • an internet connection
  • a computer
  • a computer with your progressing work on
• Please describe the degree to which you can install new software on computers you have access to.

S: Self-assessment

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

Y: Your task

• Did you select a task from our list of proposals and ideas?
  • 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.
  • If you apply for a task you have added yourself instead, please describe this task, its scope and people you already talked to concerning it. What field of tasks did you miss on the list?
• 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.