User:Oswalpalash

A: An introduction

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

I'm a 2nd year Computer Engineering student from SVNIT, India. I'm a web developer and a freelance penetration tester. I've been working with django for over 18 months now and I'm quite comfortable using it.

• • Which languages do you speak?

I speak English and Hindi primarily.

• • What's your overall background?

I'm having a computer engineering background and a diploma degree in 2-D animation.

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

By participating in Google Summer of Code, I wish to gain more experience in Django programming and get to know more people in the Open Source Community. In India the amount of developers are limited, which can be overcome by a global platform.

• • Please also describe your previous experience with the GSoC, if any.

This is the first time I'm applying to GSoC. I know many good programmers who have mentored in GSoC previously but this year I want to be a part of this fantastic opportunity.

• Why are you choosing Octave?

Octave has an Agora project which has Django platform. Since I'm quite interested and familiar to Django; I'm more interested to work with Agora during the summer and finish the project !

C: Contact

• Please state the (unique and identical where possible) nick you use on IRC and any other communication channel related to Octave.

Palash

• Which time zone do you live in? Will that change over GSoC duration?

GMT +5:30. This timezone shall remain the same over GSoC duration.

• Please state the timeframe (in UTC+0) when you feel most comfortable working during GSoC. Where are your time buffers?

I prefer UTC 11:30 A.M to 6:00 P.M UTC for coding

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've worked with C++ for 2 years but not recently. I've used Matlab m-scripts but not very widely as it helped me in specific purposes.

• Please describe your experience with other programming languages.

I have been working with Python(Django) for past 18 months and I also have done a bit of work in CI(php).

• Please describe your experience with being in a development team.

Yes, I have been a part of open source projects. I'm making some of my own projects as open source. I'm a member of Google Developer Group NIT Surat and we work collectively in Open Source Programming.

• 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.

There are many large projects I have done before. The biggest one for me was an open source crawler for my internship two years from now. It was based on XML and python. I was the sole developer of the tool. It had to scrape data of websites and parse them into meaningful tables. It took me about 2 months to finish it. Recently I developed www.svnit-sparsh.org as a css moderator.

• Please state the commits and patches you already contributed to Octave.

I've started to work for Agora(octave) and Will soon be contributing to it :)

F: Feeling fine

• Please describe (in short) your experience with the following tools:
  • IRC and mailing lists

Palash@freenode IRC. Frequent member at #django #gsoc #melange and #celery

• • Mercurial or other source code management systems

Not much experience here.

• • Mediawiki or other wiki software

I've made a personal wiki like tool using django. But quite familiar with MediaWiki though.

• • make, gcc, gdb or other development tools

GCC and Shell programming are my forte.

• What will make you actively stay in our community after this GSoC is over?

I shall be a part of the community even after GSoC. Even though I plan on finishing the work during GSoC but even if I don't I shall finish it after it. I shall not quit

O: Only out of interest

• Did you ever hear about Octave before?

Frankly speaking, I didn't hear about Octave before.

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

N.A

• • If not, where would you expect or advise us to do advertising?

You could advertise on famous tech blogs.

• What was the first question concerning Octave you could not find an answer to rather quickly?

Is there an opportunity for non-octave programmers to get a GSoC hit only if I know Django or related tools?

P: Prerequisites

• Please state the operating system you work with.

Windows, installed virtualenv. Also have an instance of Fedora.

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

Both operatings system's are installed on my laptop.

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

Unlimited Access

• • a computer

Anytime during the day.

• • a computer with your progressing work on

All day except 3:30 AM UTC to 11 A.M UTC.

• Please describe the degree up 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.

Criticism to me is not like disappointment but a window for better future. I can handle criticism fairly well.

• 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?

No, I like to go step by step and discuss changes when and where required.

• • 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 can handle such situations and I prefer doing so because it opens the mind of the developer to go in a particular direction and create a perfect code.