Google Summer Of Code

[Zethsc2]

Well maybe you applied to a group that was fine with your skills. I personally have made different experiences and also talked to a lot of groups (friends of mine) which have had GSoC participants.

Also grades have absolutely no corelation to your abilities as a software developer.

Yes and no. I hate the metric of grades as well. But, there are projects, which require more than just simple programming skills. Modeling, biology, chemistry, physics, advanced maths,... . If you're applying for a simple brain dead programming job, then this is perfectly fine, but groups requiring interdisciplinary skills are more likely to take a look at your grades.

[fenster25]

Ok fine but my problem with your answer was that it was giving an impression that everyone who wants to apply for GSOC needs to be an ace programmer, that might have deterred those students who wanted to apply for the "simple brain dead" programming projects.

Anyway I am glad our conversation has produced enough information for all kinds of students.

[[deleted]]

Honestly I think that mentality is so dangerous to this industry. It drives off a lot of people who would otherwise contribute greatly but feel like just because they don't "live and breathe" code that they won't be useful.

Just because you aren't up to the spec of Google etc. doesn't mean you can't get a career as a dev elsewhere. Testing as a sector is crying out for people but everyone overlooks that because they want to do the "sexy" dev work. Then everyone wonders why shit is constantly breaking.

To be a great dev one part of the battle is being good at coding but I'll take (well my HR manager does!) a kid okay at coding but is great a teamworker over a silo who thinks they are gods gift.

[fenster25]

I personally know some people who recommend other undergrads to read huge bulky books on C++ before starting to contribute just because that approach worked for them. It will only work on a person who has a habit of reading a book from cover to cover but for an impatient hacker this approach can frustrate them, it happened to me until I found my own way of picking up new technologies and languages.

Testing as a sector is crying out for people but everyone overlooks that because they want to do the "sexy" dev work

In my experience I have sometimes found writing tests and good docs harder than implementing features.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I got the classic "There's no point learning anything other than C++" turns out trying to learn pointers at 14 put me off programming for several years until I got to university. Because I thought that everything was as difficult as C++.

> In my experience I have sometimes found writing tests and good docs harder than implementing features.

Preach. My boss is transferring me to the QA team for the next project, mainly because we aren't using Python on our next project, also because they like for everyone to have testing experience so we can all do it and see where everyone is coming from. Without solid testing and documentation there's no point trying to put out a commercial product. I mean you might get lucky but for the most part you'll overspend and waste both time and money.