Hi Xueqing, On Thu, 2013-04-18 at 00:30 -0500, Ashley Shan wrote:
> Thank you for replying. Before you have time to more fully respond, I > want to briefly explain my concerns and ideas. I appreciate your forthrightness. I will respond with a technical outline in a separate email sent to the mailing list. (All email on the list is archived, and it is a tremendously useful thing to have it there. It also allows others to comment. There have been many times when I've needed to go back and refer to points in a discussion.) I wanted to respond to a couple of points in this email separately, though. > > 1. My major concern is my qualifications. As I mentioned earlier, I am > a first-year student planning to major in computer science. I took > CS101 (in Java) and CS201 (in C++). In CS201, we learned data types, > ADTs, and some simple algorithms, and we built some interesting > projects. I believe (and my professor confirmed) that CS201 qualifies > me to work on tasks that are a little bit above my current abilities. > My biggest problem is, I have never worked with others on a project > and I'm not familiar with source code directories. The main reasons I > am so interested in this project are 1) I really want to build my > programming skills and 2) my personal experience with intensive > academic writing allow me to really think what writers need, not what > programmers think writers need. I'm more than prepared to devote a lot > of time and energy into this project and work extensively. Hence, I > wonder whether you can give me some evaluations and/or suggestions. > Also, if you'd like to know more about my coding skills, I can send > the course description of CS201 to you or my code for its assignments. I appreciate this concern. When I began programming, I felt much the same way. It's one thing to hack away on your own, and quite another to contribute code to an active project. I frequently still feel self-conscious when I submit large code patches for review. With that said, the Google Code program is designed to provide experience to students of *all* skill levels. The secret will be to define project that you feel you will be able to tackle in the available time. As long as you are comfortable with basic data structures and algorithms, I think you will be fine in working on the UI enhancements. There are many people invested in LyX and who wish for prospective students to succeed. This includes the official LyX mentors, the other project developers, and the community at large. For your success, it is most important you feel comfortable engaging. This means asking questions, submitting code for review, and experimenting. Everyone knows that you are still finding your way, but with that said, we all are. Your contribution is not going to hurt an active project. Many eyes will look it through before it ends up in the master repository. Code with confidence. Cheers, Rob
