Hello!

This article summarizes my experience of the first evaluation of GSoC. The results of the first evaluation are out, and yes! I passed my first evaluation.

What tasks I completed till first evaluation?

I have completed the Draft Feature implementation, Ok! here's some brief - what it is? Public Lab provides a platform to people from different domains to collaborate to solve environmental issues by using inexpensive DIY techniques. It is a community where one can learn how to investigate environmental concerns. At Publiclab, people generally ask questions regarding their concerns or provide their insights by writing a research note about a technique or their experience with DIY kits. The research notes can be really long sometimes, so using the draft feature, the author can start writing note and can complete the note at their convenience by saving note as a draft.

How it works?

A user can save their work as a draft by checking this Save as draft checkbox as shown below, and then he/she can edit the draft, add tags, etc. All the work done at the draft stage is private and can only be seen by moderators and admin of Public Lab. An author can also write the draft with another user by making them co-author, which will make draft visible to the co-author and also gives the individual editing power.

A draft would be visible to authors on their dashboard, it will look something like this-

Authors can edit the draft any number of time like they edit research note and then press "Save' button to save the progress.

Whenever the user is ready to publish the note, he/she can simply press the publish button placed at top of the page

and that it, the draft is published and visible to everyone now.

If you are stuck at any step or want to refer to detailed explanation about Draft Creation, refer to this wiki

What I learned during my first evaluation

1. Dividing the work in small issues is helpful.
2. Opening small FTO's helped me in completing this feature.
3. Discussion with mentors is very helpful at each stage.
4. Gitter channel is there for good discussion
5. Weekly check-in helps in planning goals for the week and also provide insight into other's work.

Summing my experience

I was joyful on seeing the status as PASSED but when my eyes got on Mentor Notes which is written by @warren, I felt happy, proud, blessed, pleased all at the same time. I will share only some part of comment here

Gaurav has been one of our most active and most supportive of other students' work among this year's SoC students. He consistently makes time (on top of his own responsibilities) to welcome newcomers, assist people with troubleshooting, and encourage his fellow contributors in the work we're doing.

And, the last line of comment read

We're lucky to have him on the team!

I have no words to thank you guys, for being so much wonderful support in this journey, till now. It's my pleasure to be a part of such amazing team.

Thanks to whole PublicLab summer od code team and special thanks to my mentors Jeffrey Warren (@warren) and Stevie Lewis (@stevie) for brainstorming the plan and helping.

Good Bye!
Happy Coding 😄

If you are looking to contribute to open source or finding a way to start your OSS journey, just visit https://publiclab.github.io/community-toolbox/#r=all and grab an FTO. Rest is on us to make your start delightful.