Keith+Sansoucy

= Continued Learning in OSS = In the following blog, I will talk a little bit about my overall experience with OSS this semester. As a complete new-comer to OSS, I thought that the beginning of CS490 was very informative. However, as the course progressed I had trouble understanding what the computer science kids all already seemed to know. For instance, when asked to run Caribou, or to access certain parts of the code I felt lost and only came to understand how to do all that after watching someone else do it first. Contrastingly, the class got together recently for the GIT walkthrough with Mel Chua, which went really well. As a class we got to go through the process step by step with others being available for help as well as Mel's help on how to do specific things. For this I did not feel as lost, and if at any time I didn't understand something I didn't feel stupid because everyone was going through the learning process together at this point. Overall, learning about the OSS environment has been an eye opening experience. I never knew so much documentation was required, nor what that documentation might entail. While I did not really enjoy the writing of such documentation, learning about the necessary diagrams, requirements, and test methods for them was good. More than anything I like the idea that I can just take code from someone without consequence, manipulate it or update it to my liking, and either create the change for myself or submit it for others to use. Unfortunately, this course doesn't cover much coding syntax in any language used in this specific project, so I'm not one hundred percent sure I would feel confident submitting code by myself without first consulting someone who knows the language. That goes for working with the command prompt as well. As an engineer I personally feel more comfortable submitting my logic and strategy to the team rather than actually being responsible for the coding, but perhaps that will change with experience. As for what helped me learn most in this class, I would say that there were a few things that really helped me come away from this course with something. First and foremost, I thoroughly enjoyed the guest, Mel Chua, and am hoping that I enjoy the next guest or guests just as much. The energy Mel brought with her to class was inspiring, funny, and beneficial. Getting a glimpse into the world of professional OSS work and workers was enlightening for sure. Also, I think that if I had attended the hack fest it would have been beneficial as well. Aside from that, doing in class examples or walkthroughs really helped. Those kind of exercises were appropriate introductions to things as well as hands on activities to gain experience with. I would say the roadblocks that I hit along the way was definitely the writing of the documents. It seemed like we did not have enough to go on while writing these. It would've helped a lot to have accessible examples to see what each report should contain. The documents' formats and descriptions were helpful but vague at times. Therefore, I felt that while these documents are important in the OSS environment, they were a nuisance and only irritated me rather than aiding in my education. That being said, I do not feel that any part of this class has been unnecessary. Learning in the OSS environment may not always be fun and easy, but I feel like the rewards may greatly overshadow the sour experiences in the end.
 * 11/22/10 **

= What I've learned = So for this blog, I'll be talking about learning in my CS490 course so far this semester. I feel I've learned a little bit about how important the documentation for OSS projects is. In the assignments I've been given, I've found that a lot of the research and information I'm required to find is very difficult to come by. Sometimes what a document (like the SRS) calls for is hard to understand at first, but after each group in my class reviewed another groups SRS and the professor critiqued it as well, what a real SRS should look like came a little bit more into focus. I believe that these document specifications have to be strict in order to adhere to certain standards, but considering our lack of experience in this type of field and the lack of real documentation for the project we are working on, I found the grading of these assignments kind of harsh, but perhaps that is just me. At any rate, one way or another we are learning what is expected in these type of documents and I can only hope the the SDS goes a little bit better now that we've had a little practice. As far as the smaller homework assignments go, like the one I've just completed (HW5 Client-Server Architectures), I feel like I've gotten a little bit better of an understanding of material I've barely seen before. For instance, before this assignment I understood basically how a client-server architecture works, but doing the extra bit of research helped me to understand the advantages and disadvantages of such an architecture and why or why not one would want to use it. The class discussions on these "simpler" topics I feel is more enjoyable and overall more beneficial from a classroom standpoint. I must say that I was eager at the beginning of this class to contribute to an OSS project like Gnome, and I know certain steps must be taken before the actual contribution, but I am a little frustrated with the fact that so far we haven't even really had the chance to contribute. I know I must be patient, but at this point I feel like the title of this course, "Software Engineering" was slightly misleading. Hopefully over the next couple weeks, we will accomplish more than standardized documents so that not only I am satisfied with the experience, but so others do not look down upon WNEC for their lack of physical results.
 * 10/18/10 **

= IRC Review = So I just finished the 24-hour log of the a11y channel IRC. I was surprised to find that it was almost completely inactive with the exception of a couple hours. The people during this time seemed to be talking about paying for some hotel that they were all traveling to for some GNOME excursion although they didn't mention much detail about the actual event. Another couple of people were experiencing some problem with what I'm guessing had to have been code. They mentioned the word glib and used other terminology that I'm unfamiliar with, so I couldn't quite understand what was going on there. There seemed to be less humor on this channel than in the IRC log that Professor Ellis had provided for us to read. I'm just hoping that when I actually participate in this IRC they dumb it down a bit so I understand what is going on.
 * 9/14/10 **

= I Have Arrived! = Hey everyone, I'm just starting my blog for CS490 today. This is my first blog, so I'm still learning how to use everything. Bear with me. So for this first blog I guess I'm supposed to talk about learning in an OSS environment. I'm not really sure what to say at this point because I feel like I haven't really gotten my feet wet in the actual environment yet, but as far as all of the information we've been reading goes I suppose I'm excited. I never knew about open source software or free software until this class, so it's kind of cool to think that I might be able to one day say I contributed to a project that is known around the globe...and not have to work for a huge programming corporation in order to accomplish it. I wish I had discovered this sooner because I feel like one of the best ways to learn, whether programming or not, is to experience the work field first hand and see how other professionals work. Well, it's time to go wrap up the rest of this homework assignment. Till next time!
 * 9/12/10 **