When looking at the other groups were presenting, there was a group that presented key cloak, which was very fascinating and interesting. It highlighted all of the technicalities of their project. I like how the whole presentation flowed like it seemed like this was a presentation that was practice multiple times and made sure that it was ready to present in front of the class and it was great to see everyone’s progress from the beginning of the semester. I don’t quite remember everyone’s group, but I found the group that presented about like twitch third-party usage for the different feature is very interesting because I don’t think that I understood it as much in the beginning of the semester but seeing it all come together, it was wonderful. I think that this class has been very engaging, very thoughtful, and impactful in a sense of giving exposure to open source projects.
]]>Our group has been making a lot of progress in the work we are compeleting with the Actual project. Jaden has been working on finalizing his PR by addressing the feedback from code rabbit. Sahiti is working on her second PR and trying to have that merged into the repo. I have been working on a PR request that is based on API documentations for splitting transactions. The issue was about how the document is incomplete and somewhat misleading. It stated that subtransactions only require an amount, but in practice they must include additional required fields such as account, date, and relational flags (parent_id, is_child, etc.). It also did not clearly explain the role of is_parent in enabling split behavior. Therefore, my PR addresses this issue and it has been merged into the repo last week Friday. Our group is preparing for our presentations and will be doing a mock run Tuesday evening to make sure we are prepared.
This week, my group was focused on finishing their up their PRs and finalizing it so that it can be merged into the master repository. I was addressing some conflict issues to my PR from my maintainer and things were going fine until it didn’t. For the issue I had selected, the goal was to convert one of the javascript files into a typescript file and the specific file I was working on was add_attribute.js. I made some modifications on this file and had submitted a PR. It seems like the time frame that I was modifying the files and adjust to my maintainers feedback, someone else had been working on that issue which was merged into the master branch. I did not realize until later that all the changes I had made was overwritten so the maintainer reviewing my PR did not see any of my changes and rather minor changes I had made from a file. That maintainer left a very rude comment which was unfair and rather for him to seek clarity on what I am trying to do, he was very harsh. Also, it was labeled as a “good first issue” so I think that he could have been patient and closed/mark the issue as completed since someone had gotten to the solution earlier than I did. His comment made me very upset because I had put a lot of effort to fix the issue and make sure the test pass. I do think there was miscommunication and misunderstanding but I can’t do anything about that. I will be exploring other issues to work on for the remaining of the semester.
]]>During our class discussion, I saw how the industry shifted its perspective of viewing open source as a way of saving money and resources to a strategy that is used for collaboration. We explored how companies now collaborate in the “commodity layer” which is essential to fundational plumbing in a way to shre the cost while also having that unique “differentation layer”. We had also looked at some breakdowns from revenue models like Open Core and SassS which shows how “free” software can be used as a stepping stone for multibillion-dollar businesses like Red Hat. Our discussion really opened my eyes that open source is fundational to building the core of a business strategy for mordern technology.
]]>Reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar changed how I conceptualize software development. The cathedral model feels more structured and more controlled, but less iterative and slower. I imagine a small team of software engineers meticulously constructing something behind closed doors, while the bazaar model feels chaotic but more constructive with tons of collaboration, rapid iterations, and quick responsive feedback. I find the bazaar model more exciting and more realistic than the cathedral model for modern software development. I think the bazaar model captures more of how collaboration occurs on the internet through open-source software development where contributors from all walks of life and different domains contribute through discussions and improvements in real-time.
The cathedral model is more useful in more sensitive and more critical contexts where stability, security, and consistency are more critical. However, I value the bazaar model more because I value learning, openness, and community growth, which I value more learning, openness, and community growth. AI programming tools seem to blur the lines. They seem to promote the bazaar model, as with AI, contributing to those models is much easier. Someone can generate code, iterate and test their ideas, and even contribute to open-source projects without going through the learning curve as deep programming knowledge is not needed to start. AI is a tool that can enhance both models. It works best when paired with the collaborative spirit of the bazaar. Artificial Intelligence lowers the barrier to entry. It should not replace the human insight, discussion and iteration that make open source so effective.
In terms of our group project we have made progress so far especially on the frontend. We have started building out components and structuring the user interface, which is helping us better understand how everything connects. Personally I have been one of the issues that I have selected for this class which is basically converting a javascript file into a typescript file. I am currently having difficulties with solving this issue but I am using tools to help assist me.
From reading groups progress reports it seems like many teams are facing similar challenges. Especially with integration and managing time. Some groups are along, in backend development while others are still finding solutions to tackle their issues. It is interesting to see how different teams prioritize parts of the project and how AI is being used by these teams to enhance their models.
]]>Before the Spring Break, my team and I had analyzed the codebase and the issues that are in the actual repo. When we did a deep analysis of the issues, we all selected what issues we want to tackle. The issue that I selected was basically converting one of the JavaScript files into a TypeScript file. I have been working on converting the files and seeing how to make these changes to the files. My team members have confirmed whether my code works, and I have tested to see if the test cases have passed, and they have. This week, I plan on merging my edits to the main repo (as it is currently in the forked repo). I also plan on making more contributions to the other open-source project. Last week, I made contributions to the Wikipedia page, but I am a bit confused on how to contribute to OpenStreetMap. Therefore, I will be doing more research on how to actively contribute to more open-source projects.
]]>As I was listening to all the groups verbal presentations, I really liked how all groups are focusing on a different niche because we are getting different presepectives of open source projects. The different niches include Finance, AI, Python libraries and much more. I could tell that there were like one or two groups that were more ahead than others because they were discussing about creating their own issues that they want to fix to the application. This made me think about potentially looking at our application and seeing what changes we wanted to make. However, we though for our first issue, it would be best if we worked on an existing issue to start. I also realized that many groups ran into some issues when downloading the environment either because some dependincies needed to be installed or issues with the devices. We all had solutions as to how to resolve that issue which was great. After all teams presented their stand up’s, my group and I immediately started working on finding an issue to focus on and we have decided that we will try to work on resolving the issue. My group are very excited to start working on the issues we have selected.
]]>So far, group work has been very well. I have collaborated with my group members, Jaden and Sahiti for other group activities and I believe that we are relatively a good group. We have good communication and we know when to be focused and serious and also know when to joke around. When deciding on a project idea, we all discussed about our project evaluations and what type of projects we are interested in. Then, we have evaluated which projects are best for the course and have new users opportunities. We have not ran into any obstacles. We do plan on discussing what type of contributions we want to make to our project starting with documentation.
]]>The type of project I hope to contribute with my group are any projects related to AI and cybersecurity that are related to ensuring security of private data and information. I would also want to contribute to a project that deals with improving web development because I do want to improve in these skillsets. I am still not sure what exactly I want my group project to be but it could also be something that is fun. However, I don’t have a limited idea as to what project I want to contribute to but my main goals are to contribute to a project that addresses a real-life issue and targets a solution to amend this problem.
So far, there isn’t anything that is standing in my way now. I believe that if my group can actively contribute and communicate with one another, we would not have any problems in the future. For my group project, I can contribute my programming skills to any of the contributions for open source. I am more proficient in Python than any program languages so I hope to contribute to more Python based projects or/and web development projects. Additionally, I plan on incorporating my time management and leadership skills to this project to ensure that this project runs smoothly.
When I contributed to last week’s browser extension project, the main contributions I made were working on the front end of our extension. Sahiti and I had originally worked on how the UI is supposed to look where it had a checkbox feature for all the items that will be added to the list, a box that has the input, and an output box for the affirmations. The biggest challenge was creating the generative message for the affirmations. The execution wasn’t difficult but I had to wait for the logic to be done for the Gemini to be implemented into our program so that affirmations could be generated randomly and be specific to the tasks inputted. I am most proud of having the ability to work on UI/UX because I do want to get more exposure on frontend development.
AI is a powerful tool that mostly everyone uses for their development. Based on the activity we had completed in class, my group and I found that AI source (ChatGPT) was mostly correct and accurate when answering responses. However, when asked if the code of conduct existed in the repository, it linked a document that did not exist in the repository. Also, when asked how many users discuss the issue or when the issue was reported, it said that it varies. This could be because ChatGPT can’t search through the sublinks or analyze the website. I believe that project evaluations can be generated by AI but a human would need to double check questions based on asking for a specific quantity or if links are accessible.
]]>The biggest take-away from my group project is how we were able to collaborate and communicate with one another. Despite our schedules being busy, we still made sure that roles were divided for the project and that we executed a plan on how we should go about our presentations. Based on other groups’ presentations, I realized that there were groups that had creative extension ideas like the NYU images for each tab and the sound effects on the YouTube videos. I thought that each group had creative and different ideas and it was interesting to see the way that they executed the projects.
Based on the three videos this week, I saw that Kelsey Hightower emphasized that open source is used to inspire others including competitors and argued that “moats” is counterproductive in an era of collaboration. Craigh McLuckie spoke about the modern supply chain and how generative AI can introduce sales dependencies. Linus Torvalds has expressed his frustrations with secrets around hardware-level security bugs but remains optimistic about AI evolving in programming tools.
I learned that many presenters took upon the approach of introducing a real-life problem before presenting their ideas. Also, my group made the presentation more interactive by asking the audience for their input before proceeding with the demo. I think that I should improve my style of presentations by being more interactive with my audience and asking for their inputs. Also, I know that if I want to sell an idea, I need to give my customers/audience a reason to purchase the product. Therefore, I want to present the information in a way that is convincing and provide a scenario or problem and provide a solution using the product/application I want to see.
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