Google Code In 2018
Introduction :
Google Code-in is an annual programming competition hosted by Google Inc. that allows pre-university students to complete tasks specified by various, partnering open source organizations.
I am an 15 year old boy,currently studying in 11th grade. I came to know about GCI from my brother and I felt I should give GCI a try.
Choosing an Organisation:
I started searching for organisations from early June. I read about the requirements, mottos and participation of different organisations. Sugarlabs was the only organisation which I felt comfortable with and its requirements matches with my skill set.
First Step:
I joined the IRC channel and the developer mailing list of sugarlabs. Before the starting of my journey I was Fluent in Python and very much familiar with Linux and Git, but I was just a newbie in Javascript. I started learning Javascript from different sources like Udemy, W3schools etc. I did some projects and I became familiar with Javascript by early September. I started polishing my Python skills by doing some competitive programming on codechef, codeforces, hackerrank etc. I read the sugar handbook and I installed the Sugar desktop environment for better understanding.
Communication with different mentors/Students :
The one of the person I came across the irc chat was Hrishi patel. He is really a great person. He cleared many of my doubts and helped me a lot.I came to know many other mentors and students like Samson Goddy, Anmol Mishra, Walter Bender, Peace Ojemeh, Rahul Bothra , Lionel Laske, James Cameron and many more. All of them are polite and very kind. Sugarlabs is a community you can join without any hesitation and you won’t leave ever. :)
About the Contest:
The contest Began on 23rd Oct at 9:30 Pm (IST). I was so excited that I registered for the contest in the first 5 mins. I completed my first 2 beginner tasks on the same day. After then, the real fun began, I scrolled through hundreds of tasks and found really fun to do them. The main obstacle I faced was with the editing and creative tasks because they require much time and still you don’t will the mentors approve it or not. The best tasks were the coding one. They were fun to do and I got much to learn. I have some regret that I had to abandon 2 tasks due to my exams. There were many fun tasks like Designing T-shirts for Sugarlabs,Creating a sticker for sugarlabs,Writing a Script to fetch the contributors data, Porting from GObject to GLib etc. I got stuck with some these tasks but there were many people on the irc channel to whom I can reach out for help.
Now, The Program is about to end and I feel that it was the best month of my life. I know my contribution wasn’t big enough but I hope it will help the community. Thanks a lot To Sugarlabs for giving me this opportunity and Thanks to Google for Conducting this wonderful and Fun program every year.
P.S:
The main goal of participating in GCI is to learn and communicate not to win but to learn. And Everyone should know the basics of atleast one programming language and should be familiar with git and Linux as they are really helpful throughout the contest.