Non-Code Contributions, Quarter in Reflection

Throughout this quarter, I've struggled with my courseload, and finding time to get over what seemed like barriers to entry for this project. First, it was learning python. Then, it was getting a sugar emulator / environment to work. It seemed like it was impossible to actually get down to work.

But looking back on things, it seems that this all could have been solved by choosing a different path: non-code contributions.

Having realized this, the other members of my group have asked me to help by:

• creating a class diagram for the Open Video Chat project
• reorganizing our repository's git history

This is great! Most of the quarter, I found myself feeling as though everyone else definitely knew more about python and programming in general. But now I get to play my strengths, including git and visual thinking.

Contributing anything to a FOSS project helps. The most valuable thing to anyone is time, so all contributions are great. Whether it's updating a wiki, or contributing assets to some project in need of a visual facelift, you're helping out.

Weekly Update 2: Now with more python

Still getting a grasp on python. I have to say, last quarter, learning C# and matlab at the same time was easy. Strongly versus weakly typed? Piece of cake. This quarter, learning javascript and python at the same time might be a little confusing.

But I'm powering through http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/index.html and I've already identified better documentation and coding styles that can be applied to OVC.

My current task is to get sugar running under a debian vm. I haven't used debian in ages, and when I did back int eh day, I didn't use it for much. I wonder if I can get sugar running under arch...

Weekly Project Update

Unfortunately, I've been struggling to get started on this project. Although it's true that python is very easy to understand, it's still a bit difficult to jump in to a project of this complexity as a starting point.

However, I can share a few resources I'm using to learn python.

http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/index.html
http://cscircles.cemc.uwaterloo.ca/
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/
http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/python
https://www.udacity.com/course/cs101

Right now I'm mainly using the first link.

In order to make sure I've got it down, I'm going to do my next Vibes & Waves (an advanced physics class) computational assignment in python.

Hello World!

Let's see here... blogging platform, check. Overdone cliche title, check.
Development project...

This will mainly be my software development blog, mainly for doing work with Teaching Open Source.

We've been tasked with looking in to different Sugar Labs activities. The top three that I'm interested in, and why, are as follows:

1. Physics - being an ex-physics major, and current physics minor, physics interests me greatly. Perhaps this could be adapted for collaboration (one thing the creator wants) and something that will help kids learn (showing the equations and information for objects).
2. Etoys - I'm also interested in Game Design and Development. I think that game design is a great way to get kids into programming, with an immediate visual confirmation of your work. I think that Etoys is a great starting step for that.
3. Turtle Blocks and Turtle Confusion - both are, again, great introductions to programming and problem solving (especially for confusion, which has you use turtle concepts to replicate shapes. It's challenge-based instead of creative.)