About me

• I'm Eklavya Sharma, a 3^rd year CS student at BITS.
• I participated in GSoC 2016 under Zulip.
• You can find me on github: https://github.com/sharmaeklavya2

What is GSoC?

• Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is annual program in which Google pays university students to do a coding project for an open-source organization during the summer.
• The organizations provide mentors who guide students through the entire process.
• https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com

Presentation summary

• More about the GSoC process.
• Should you participate?
• How to choose an organization?
• How to contact an organization?
• How to increase chances of getting accepted?
• Software development tips
• BITS-specific issues

GSoC process

February 27 - Mentoring open-source organizations announced

• Last year around 180 organizations were accepted.

Students talk to organizations

• Students talk to organizations and ask them for a coding project.
• Organizations have a list of projects which they want done.
• Sometimes students can also suggest projects.

Students prove themselves

• Students make small contributions to the organization to prove that they are skilled enough to do the project.

Students write applications

• Students write an application about the project they wish to work on, a rough plan of how they will complete the project, etc.
• Students have to submit their applications to google between March 20 and April 3.

Organizations select students

• Organizations select the best students among those who applied.
• Selection rate is low:
  • 19000 students registered on Google for GSoC.
  • 7500 students submitted applications.
  • 1200 students were accepted.

GSoC begins

• Accepted students begin working on their projects from May 4 onwards.
• Mentors help students work on their projects.

GSoC timeline summary

• Feb 27 - Mentoring organizations announced
• March 20 - Student application period opens
• April 3 - Student application deadline
• May 4 - Accepted students announced
• May 30 - GSoC begins
• August 29 - GSoC ends

Should you participate?

You should participate in GSoC if:

• You like coding and you are good at it (whatever language).
• You like learning new things.
• You want to do something real.

Advantages of participating in GSoC:

• You get to learn things you would otherwise not be able to learn.
• Getting accepted for GSoC is proof of your ability, and it can be a shining point on your resume.
• You get to meet and work with great people.
• The ca$h ($2400 = Rs.1,64,000) and a t-shirt.
• You can brag about it!

Disadvantages of participating in GSoC:

• You'll spend 3 months during GSoC and at least 2 months preparing for GSoC. This might not be the best use of your time if software development isn't your primary interest.
• It can affect your grades. I missed many classes to work for my organization.
• It's disheartening to not get accepted.

Participating next year

You can participate in GSoC next year and use this year for training and familiarizing yourself with GSoC application process.

How to choose an organization?

Your interest and familiarity with the software

• Working on a scuba-diver monitoring program can be difficult if you don't know much about scuba-diving.
• Working on a software library can be difficult if you have never used that library.

Skills

• It'll be good if you know the programming language used for a project, but that might not be a requirement.
• You'll generally need to know the required technologies, especially if it's a popular technology.
• For e.g., If you have to make an android app as part of your project, you will probably be expected to already know how to build android apps.

Competition

• Very popular organizations (like Mozilla) have a lot of competition. Extremely skilled students participate in them.
• New organizations (those which have never taken part in GSoC before) have less competition but accept less students.

Responsiveness

• Some organizations are very responsive. You'll find their forums brimming with activity.
• Some organizations are very beginner-friendly.
• Organizations which don't seem interested in mentoring should be avoided (though that's often difficult to detect).

Keeping in touch with multiple organizations

• Contacting multiple organizations protects against unresponsive organizations and too much competition in some organizations.
• An organization you contact early might not get accepted for GSoC.
• Most people try 1, 2 or 3 organizations.

How to contact an organization?

Know your organization

• Before contacting a person in the organization, make sure you know about the organization.
• You should visit the organization's website (if any) and read about the programs its developers work on.
• Introducing yourself is useful only if done at the right time.

Forum

• Organizations often have a forum, mailing list or chatroom where they discuss their software.
• Often developers ask for help there when they're stuck.
• Developers also discuss strategy, progress and new ideas for their program.
• Lurking on this forum can give you an idea of what's going on now.
• It also tells you how active an organization is.

Repository

• An organization's code repository often contains a readme and contribution guide. Read them before contacting a developer in the organization.
• Readme often tells you how to build the program from source code and run it. It's important to try that out yourself before contacting a developer in the organization.
• Most organizations use github to store their code repository.

Bug tracker

• Most organizations use a web application where developers (and sometimes even normal users) can report bugs and features. Such an application is called a bug tracker.
• This is where most of the action happens.
• Each bug or feature request has a separate discussion thread. Here developers discuss how to fix the bug or implement the feature.
• Most organizations use the bug tracker that comes with github.

Bug tracker (2)

• Most organizations classify bugs by their difficulty.
• If you want to fix an easy bug but don't know how to begin, you can ask on the bug tracker.
• Avoid telling too much about yourself on the bug tracker. Just talk about the bug. For introducing yourself, you can use the mailing list or forum instead.

Avoiding communication delay

• Discussions on forums, bug trackers, mailing lists, etc. can speed up by a huge factor if done in realtime.
• This is especially important if developers in your organization live in a very different timezone.
• Most forums, bug trackers, etc. support e-mail notifications or mobile-app notifications. Use them!
• Email isn't supposed to be checked. Email should inform you when it arrives.

How to get accepted?

The harsh reality

• You generally need to know almost exactly how to do the project before you write your application.
• To prove your ability (and gain ability if you don't have it), you'll have to make many contributions to your organization (because others will try to do the same).

Start early

• The earlier you start, the more time you'll have to learn required skills and make enough contributions.
• Generally people start contacting organizations even before organizations are announced.

Prepare well

• General skills: For e.g., programming, version control, command-line, markdown, makefiles and developer general knowlege.

• Specific skills: For e.g., programming language, web dev, android dev, desktop app dev, networking, computer graphics, distributed computing.

General preparation

• Version control: Most organizations use git and expect you to know it well. http://www.git-tower.com/learn/ebook/command-line/introduction
• Linux: Since most projects use linux, you should be familiar with it.
• Command-line: You should at least know basic command invocation and IO redirection. http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_learning_the_shell.php
• Automated Testing: This is widely used. Learn it and try it out once so that you understand the terminology and know the basics.

Introduce yourself well

• Most organizations have a ritual where every student who wants to apply for GSoC has to introduce himself/herself on the mailing list or forum.
• Most students also ask for further direction when they introduce themselves.
• You must introduce yourself at the right time.
• You must introduce youself in the right way to have the most impact.

Introduce yourself well (2)

• Tell about all your relevant skills and your interests.
• Tell about your past projects (if any).
• Your introduction should not be too small to not give enough information about yourself.
• Your introduction should not be so big that the mentor doesn't bother reading it.
• If you don't have much space, include links. But keep in mind that the mentor might not visit them.

Communication etiquette

• Never ask to ask.
• Ask specific questions, give all details and search the docs, bug tracker and internet before asking.
• Before opening a new issue, search for the issue in the bug tracker.
• Do as the mentor says. Don't irritate the mentor.

Coding ettiquette

• Be aware of the organization's whitespace policy. If you use tabs instead of spaces or vice-versa, you'll be asked to fix the whitespace.
• Avoid trailing whitespace (unless absolutely neccessary).
• Only modify code which needs to be modified, so that analyzing your diff is easier.
• Write clear and descriptive commit messages and commit at right granularity.

Software development tips

Learning to work with others

• Most of us are used to working on projects we wrote ourselves.
• To contribute to open-source, we must know how to work on others' projects.
• Version-control is important for teamwork.
• Try sending a pull request to your friends to get an idea of the process.

Working on big software

• You don't need to know everything about the program.
• You should know what the application does from user perspective. Run it and explore its features.
• You should know what's the high level design of the program.
• You only need to know the details of the part you are interested in working in.

Searching in big software

• grep was helpful. Knowlege of regular expressions was sometimes helpful.
• Use a text editor which helps in fast searching and navigation.
• In an IDE, a class explorer might be helpful.

BITS-specific issues

PS1 clash

• It is not hard to do PS1 with GSoC. Many people have done it before.
• I avoided PS stations which are known for giving relatively more work.

Sem 1 clash

• Your summer vacations will end before GSoC ends.
• It's important to tell your organization about this.
• Try to almost finish your project during vacations.