Google Code-In - The best thing ever happened to me in 2017 and also the one with which I have entered 2018. First of all, I would like to thank Google, Wikimedia, and all the organisations who came together to make this happen.
I am Omkar Jadhav, 16 years old (11th grade) , from India. I came to know about GCI from one my classmates, and I was astonished to know that this wasn't the first year of GCI and Google conducts it every year. I am into programming since my early days of class 8th, and somehow, I can't give up on the thought that my life would have been something totally different If I came to know about it much earlier.
I chose to work with Wikimedia for this GCI because Wikimedia and Wikipedia are something I am aware of since I ever started to use internet. Search for anything, one can get it here. I always wondered how do they manage keep such huge amount of information online, and, is that all they do? To get all the answers, it was necessary for me to work with Wikimedia. As of now, I have completed 7 tasks with Wikimedia and I am loving it! :)
My first task was about using Internet Relay Chat. For someone who always used WhatsApp or Facebook, it was a very new concept. Out of excitement, I submitted my task for review before the time that was specified and got "More work needed" in my very first task. Kind of disheartening it was, but the mentors convinced me not worry about it. Mentors of Wikimedia were always helpful throughout the journey, I would like to thank specially Derick N Alangi, Florian Schmidt, Legoktm and Zppix who were the common mentors for most of my tasks. During my first task, Derick also helped me with some of my Android programming doubts. About reviewing tasks, I can bet, Wikimedia is the fastest. One can directly contact the mentors on the #wikimedia-dev channel and ask them to review the tasks, they don't like to keep someone waiting.
Another set of tasks I completed were about adding MinusX support to WikiMedia extensions. Here I was introduced to Git, Gerrit, Phabricator and the very cool bots, Jenkins and wikibugs.
It was a very glorious experience. The systematic procedure that the company follows regarding code review is appreciable. The developer improves the code and submits a patch via gerrit. The Jenkins bot carries out a primary build. Some of the developers are asked to do a code review. One can manually add them as well. If they think everything is alright, they give a +1. Then the authorised person finally takes a look and if he likes it he merges them and gives a +2. Finally I got reasons as of why is open source coding so interesting. On a successful merge, One gets notification on the IRC channel as well. I took it as a challenge to get the task correct on my first attempt and I succeeded in my 5th task.
All together it was like shifting from enjoying the service to how the service is made to reach the users. When you love doing something, you don't care about day and night. I feel this is the most important teaching I have got from this GCI. I also came to know about different programming languages. One of them was Lua. I wanted to do tasks about Lua as well, but I felt it won't be healthy to do them without having any knowledge about Lua. So I got some e-books and now I am into learning it. I joined GCI much late this year but I am sure that next year I will participate at full length. The only thing I feel that should be improved is that GCI should reach more and more teenagers. If you want to pursue a career in programming ,GCI(Google Code-In) is just the right place to give it a start!
Once again, I thank all the Mentors of Wikimedia and Google to make my journey with GCI-2017 memorable. Looking forward for the next GCI :)
I am Omkar Jadhav, 16 years old (11th grade) , from India. I came to know about GCI from one my classmates, and I was astonished to know that this wasn't the first year of GCI and Google conducts it every year. I am into programming since my early days of class 8th, and somehow, I can't give up on the thought that my life would have been something totally different If I came to know about it much earlier.
I chose to work with Wikimedia for this GCI because Wikimedia and Wikipedia are something I am aware of since I ever started to use internet. Search for anything, one can get it here. I always wondered how do they manage keep such huge amount of information online, and, is that all they do? To get all the answers, it was necessary for me to work with Wikimedia. As of now, I have completed 7 tasks with Wikimedia and I am loving it! :)
My first task was about using Internet Relay Chat. For someone who always used WhatsApp or Facebook, it was a very new concept. Out of excitement, I submitted my task for review before the time that was specified and got "More work needed" in my very first task. Kind of disheartening it was, but the mentors convinced me not worry about it. Mentors of Wikimedia were always helpful throughout the journey, I would like to thank specially Derick N Alangi, Florian Schmidt, Legoktm and Zppix who were the common mentors for most of my tasks. During my first task, Derick also helped me with some of my Android programming doubts. About reviewing tasks, I can bet, Wikimedia is the fastest. One can directly contact the mentors on the #wikimedia-dev channel and ask them to review the tasks, they don't like to keep someone waiting.
Another set of tasks I completed were about adding MinusX support to WikiMedia extensions. Here I was introduced to Git, Gerrit, Phabricator and the very cool bots, Jenkins and wikibugs.
It was a very glorious experience. The systematic procedure that the company follows regarding code review is appreciable. The developer improves the code and submits a patch via gerrit. The Jenkins bot carries out a primary build. Some of the developers are asked to do a code review. One can manually add them as well. If they think everything is alright, they give a +1. Then the authorised person finally takes a look and if he likes it he merges them and gives a +2. Finally I got reasons as of why is open source coding so interesting. On a successful merge, One gets notification on the IRC channel as well. I took it as a challenge to get the task correct on my first attempt and I succeeded in my 5th task.
All together it was like shifting from enjoying the service to how the service is made to reach the users. When you love doing something, you don't care about day and night. I feel this is the most important teaching I have got from this GCI. I also came to know about different programming languages. One of them was Lua. I wanted to do tasks about Lua as well, but I felt it won't be healthy to do them without having any knowledge about Lua. So I got some e-books and now I am into learning it. I joined GCI much late this year but I am sure that next year I will participate at full length. The only thing I feel that should be improved is that GCI should reach more and more teenagers. If you want to pursue a career in programming ,GCI(Google Code-In) is just the right place to give it a start!
Once again, I thank all the Mentors of Wikimedia and Google to make my journey with GCI-2017 memorable. Looking forward for the next GCI :)
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