ReviewBoard recap

Crystal blogging twice in 2 hours? No way! Well… actually this was written 2.5 weeks ago and it was supposed to be posted on to the UCOSP blog. That didn’t happen or it might be posted later, so instead of potentially wasting my effort of writing that blog, let me post it on my blog!

Time has flown by!

I can’t believe there’s only 2 weeks left in this term. Unfortunately,
this also means that it’s almost time to wrap up loose ends for this
term. I have had such a pleasant experience working with the mentors
and interacting with other groupmates that I am feeling a little sad
that this term is about to be over. However, I am hoping to continue
with my task after this term is over. For those wondering, I am a
third year UBC student majoring in Computer Science.

While others have wrote about what they have done for this term, I’ll
talk more about my experience being a UCOSP student. When I first
received an email from UBC Computer Science explaining about the UCOSP
program, I was really excited about all the possibilities. After
sending in a brief application, I got accepted into the program and I
had to choose a project. When I looked through all the projects,
ReviewBoard definitely looked the most appealing to me due to the fact
that I have never really worked with Python and Django looked really
interesting. Before this project, I have only coded in java, C++, C
and C# and have done testing in my co-op work terms. I didn’t know
what to expect out this program but the chance of getting to work on
an open source project and getting credit for school were too good to
pass up.

One of the coolest part of UCOSP is the opportunity to meet up with
your groupmates across the country. I honestly did not know what to
expect at the code sprint in Edmonton. Before the code sprint, I spent
lots of time trying to figure out how ReviewBoard works but I did not
find much success. During the code sprint, the best part was how we
were all working together to solve very simple problems due to the
fact that we were very new to the project. This definitely brought the
group together even though we had very little time together. One of
the funniest fact about the sprint was that all of the our mentors
besides Kevin were unable to come to Edmonton, so we spent lots of on
IRC. While other rooms were busy chatting away, our room was dead
silent while we were talking on the IRC the entire time. While IRC
meetings can not truly replace a face to face conversation, I
definitely had a more positive experience than I believed at first.
Being restricted to IRC for communication has definitely improved my
way to communicate with my fellow groupmates and mentors.

For my project, I am working on a quick search feature that uses the
autocomplete widget. It’s actually pretty simple but it took much
longer than I thought because I was so green. One of my major
struggles at the beginning was not reading good tutorials. I had some
issues trying to find a good Django tutorial when the entire time, the
Django book, was available to me. I definitely struggled when I had no
idea why things would work. The next time when I join in on a complete
new project, I will definitely take some more time to find proper
tutorials to get a solid understanding. Christian was able to give me
very good advice on how to approach this project. After that, I took
some time and organized it into parts to complete. Luckily, I did not
run into too much road blocks that stalled me for long periods of
time. But for the start of each part, it took a lot of time to figure
out how to do approach the code. It was a pretty big hill to climb
each time but I felt the most important thing was to keep trying and
know how to ask smart questions. I definitely felt happy at the end of
every single time I accomplished something! I’m pretty sure I’ll be
able to finish this quick search project. In the mean time, I am
starting a new project on issue tracking. I don’t think I’ll get that
done in time but hopefully I’ll be able to continue on with this
project during Summer while I’m out for another co-op work term.

All in all, I’m very happy with my decision of joining UCOSP and
ReviewBoard. If you are a prospective student reading my entry by any
chance, definitely give it a thought! A huge thanks to my mentors,
Christian, David, Mike and Kevin for being so patient with me and
giving me such good guidance. Also, without UBC faculty Thomas and
Megan and UCOSP committee, I would not have this awesome experience.
Thank you so much everyone!

- Crystal