Summer of 2013 with Numpy and Google
GSoC is a learning process — we learn to work together to solve a big problem by breaking it down into smaller chunks.
This year, 2013, I got the chance to work as a student contributor at Numpy. And the experience was worth paying the amount of effort. I have joined Numpy, a community that’s quite friendly and helpful.
I passed the final evaluation but I value experience more than consequence (off-course passed makes me happy). The experience that I had for being a part of this program. Nothing could be more inspiring and motivational than working with people from almost every part of the globe connected together just because of their love and passion for code and to develop amazing things. Also got a chance to learn from such experienced and enthusiastic developers.
I have written the summary of the project into two posts: Profiling and Bottle-necks. All together with my mentors Charles R Harris and the whole community successfully achieved what we planned. Project information and final code can be seen here [https://google-melange.appspot.com/gsoc/project/google/gsoc2013/arinkverma/79001]
What I gained this year?
The most challenging aspect is to get work with people across different geographical reasons. People from different regions think and act differently as they might have different concerns. Coming out with a product that is accepted by everyone is itself a strenuous task. To work in a team with huge diversity in timezone and thinking was a colorful experience.
This program and Numpy follow the development workflow so well. I learned :
- Git: to develop socially, the concept of PR
- Python and Numpy C API: making python module in c
- To write good code, NumPy follows the strict and good practice of writing beautiful code.
- Profiling and visualization of data to figure out bottle-neck in performance
There are lots of things to make Numpy better, which I would love to do, even after GSoC.
Originally published at http://arinkverma1.wordpress.com on September 27, 2013.
