We have had a terrific time working together to solve some really cool problems. I found my work to be relevant. This is a short note to my mentors and future students.
For a detailed description of our main ideas please checkout the Featured Posts section of my blog. For an even closer look at the project timeline check out the Weekly Updates category. Here you will find the intermediate ideas and decisions that led us to the final versions which will be helpful for future contributors.
When I first started working on shogun, I worked on small and some large issues. The community was very supportive and helped me with things that were trivial to complicated through detailed and regular feedbacks. This, when mixed with summer of code and some regularity, transformed into brainstorming sessions with my mentors. I had a lot of fun exploring and implementing those ideas into the project. However, not all of those plans have been realized into code. I would love to continue working on them after Summer of Code.
The most important part for a successful project will be good communication with mentors. I have enjoyed that part of this summer to the fullest. Every week we would have a meeting on hangouts sometimes with a document open by the side where we write about new ideas. This went on for hours. The next morning I can’t wait to merge it as soon as I have something that compiles. Ofcourse, the merging part always came after a few days or maybe a week with a lot more thoughts to make it shine. I have learned a lot from my mentors about the way I should be thinking on problems.
I want to thank my mentors Heiko Strathmann and Giovanni De Toni for working with me and always patiently helping me, for understanding my ideas and for realizing them in shogun codebase. I am very excited to see where we take the new developments from here.
Advice for new contributors
The community is welcoming of new contributors. People are very happy to help out and guide you through issues. Do not be afraid to try out new ideas. An explorative approach to things is the best way to understand and then improve upon new ideas. Taking your time to learn about things, realizing that you are stuck and then clearly explaining why that is, will lead to some of the most constructive ideas. Shogun welcomes new contributors to take up new ideas and produce nice code. Being active will always lead to a solution.