Gitting Projects

My exposure to Git and Open Source Projects prior to this week have been very minimal. This weeks exposure have allowed me to explore both components on a deeper level. More specifically, in the sense of being able to better understand their relevance to project.

Knowing Git

Honestly speaking, I feel like I personally am really good at finding shortcuts to git. I’ve always used the terminal in VSCode, with very limited experience to the MacOS terminal. Not only that, but prior to the Mac laptop that I have now, I used to have a Dell one and had to download the git terminal seperately. In this case, I always preferred not to engage on the local terminal, even as I grew to understand how to use it and git through my Agile class last semester. On top of that, in my Agile class I was able to follow tutorials to get through each step, without knowing or actually remembering what was happening.

So, with the assistance of this class, I grew to better understand git and it’s funcitionality. Whether it be through understanding the commands and terminology in more complexity or the flow of projects using git, I’ve grown to seek understanding the value of git. In other words, how git is actually beneficial when tracking changes in a file, especially when working with a team.

This is prevelant with the extension project going on. Without git, it would’ve been hard to understand which parts of the code were rewritten or changed by others. Even if my group had different roles and parts to focus on, there still is the potential of the code changes overlapping which would definitely cause merge issues. With git, it addresses these issues to allow my group and projects overall to flow more steadily.

Thus, the git exercises in class and slide deck provides an easy resource to refer to when wanting to understand the main points of the git and the commands useful for navigating the terminal for a project.

Open Sourcing Exploration

My group focused on evaluating scikit-learn. It was such a great resource, and honestly if I was more involved in data processing and more knowledgeable on those concepts, I would’ve loved to contribute to that project. Everyone seemed so friendly and communicative which made it easier to navigate the repo.

However, this isn’t only relevant to scikit-learn, but also to majority of the projects evaluated by other students. I found myself very intrigued with how each project was open sourced, yet also very descriptive and detailed in how others could contribute. I was really intrigued with Jellyfin and Godot as they were resources that I could understand more easily, and in theory possibly make a contribution that I feel like would be valuable.

Overall, I’m really excited to work on an open source project and get truly involved with an active team. I find it super rewarding to know that I’m not going to create another software that is never seen again, but actually to make contributions that can impact others with actively running softwares. Thus, as I continue to explore open source projects, I find myself excited to see what changes I can make. Howevevr, I also fear and believe that my main challenge is if I can actually make valid contribution to a project. So, I love and greatly appreciate that we are spending so much time in class to review projects and their contributing documents. Though it can be hard for me to judge if I can actually implement something meaningful, I know that with more experience and exposure to contribution documents, I can warm me up to the idea that if I read the documentation I can find something that I am confident in!! Side note: I also love how inclusive and descriptive some projects are, it makes me feel even more valued and trust that I can contribute, even if very little.

Course Reflection and Thoughts

Every week I continue to greatly appreciate this class and honestly am reminded how excited I am to be able to contribute to something. So exciting and I can’t wait to see what more I can learn about open source but also git!!