Team Blue on Top

In Week 3 of OSSD, we were put into groups to make a browser extension. Though this class primarily focuses on being in groups and conversing, this is the first time we are actually producing software that has the potential to be open source.

I had a great time getting to know and work with my group mates @milelime, @nuzhny25, and @tgs8717. They’re all such talented and intelligent individuals and I’m so excited to see the project we produce as a team. I feel like all of ideals and visions for this project align and thankfully there seems to be no major (personal) problems.

In class, we flew through the questions of the assignment, creating our own trial “Hello World” extension, exploring the Chrome Extensions samples repository, and exploring the uBlock Origin Lite repository. In doing these activities, I greatly appreciated how accomodating yet decisive my group is. It was really easy for us to agree on what topic to do, which is insane, since my history of group work always consisted of indecision and everyone being too considerate of others. I loved how we didn’t waste the time we had together and established communication routes pretty early.

Not only that, but we had great discourse when discussing possible extensions to create. We evaluated the complexities of each of our ideas, our skill levels, and our time to determine what the best route to take would be. This led to us deciding on a practical and usable extension – a temperature converter. More specifically, the ability to highlight text, such as temperature to transform it into the opposing temperature. I found this idea most compelling as it’s very helpful but also as there is room for growth and additional features if the time permits.

As of now, my group is not facing any roadblocks or challenges as our goals are all in order. We have established what needs to be done and have been assiting each other as posisble. Right now, we are contemplating what license to apply to our code and are contending on either the MIT License or the GNU General Public License depending on our project goals. I have assisted in curating the repository and partaking in research for the license and will soon be assisting on writing the code itself to see the program come to fruition. In this process, I find myself to be a steady collaborator, more so in the sense where I don’t take the lead but will consistently contribute through confirmation or side comments. I find value in developing our progress, no matter how slow or little it is. In other words, though I don’t take the “lead” role, I still feel pretty valuable in decision making and development of the software. This is surprising to me as I realize that my involvement in a project greatly varies with how the teammates are like and how they assume their roles. For example, if no one is taking the lead I will, thus showing my ability to adapt to different circumstances.

Course Reflection and Thoughts

Over time, I find myself much more interested in the concept of open source. I started to realize how much exposure I have to open source softwares and how the media protrays them. It’s so interesting seeing this process and actually understanding the concept of licensing, code of conducts, and the formate of a repository as I was unexperienced in these concepts. Overall, I once again am expressing my appreciation for this course as it’s so much fun. I love how collaborative it is, and it makes me excited to go to class everyday!