IF200X

Pas masi kul di ITB, gini neh kesanku terhadap angkatan2 di IF:

• IF 2000: Ni angkatan SUPER KOMPAK deh, pas nge-ospek juga ga bosenin. Pas berangkat ospek malah ga takut, tapi selalu bertanya2 dalam hati, wah nanti ada kejutan apa ya? Seru pokoknya. Orangnya lucu-lucu, tapi ya yng menonjol kompaknya itu..Ga peduli mo ospek kek, mukrab kek mereka selalu tampil bagus.
  
• IF 2001: Angkatan SUPER KOMPAK. Ditandai dengan seringnya danlap berkata "kalian tidak kompak" kepada mereka. Tapi mereka sebenarnya niat bgt ..Niat belajar..Niat ngerjain tugas heheheh.. Tapi kalo lagi mau kompak, wah bisa kompak banget..Buktinya mas Mukrab taon 2004 kalo ga salah. The best performance-nya 2001 tuhh.
  
• IF 2003: Hmm, THE BEST! Pas gw ngira peformance 2001 udah keren di Mukrab taon 2004, angkatan 2003 lagi2 membuktikan bahwa dalam urusan ginian mereka tidak ada tandingannya. Gile lah, orang2 "aneh", jenius, lucu, kreatif, ada semua-lah disini. Tapi yang menonjol kreatif + kompaknya itu.
• IF2004: Ga terlalu tau...Tapi kayaknya sih mirip2 2003..
  

GSoC is over

Google Summer of Code 2008 is over now. I'm pretty satisfied that I succesfully accomplished the program. However, actually I feel that I can contribute more to OpenNMS, so probably I will try to apply again next year. Earn some USD by doing something that you love, how can you resist such kind of things ? :) Plus, I think it can boost your CV and it's a good investment when you apply for a job in the future.

What did I learn from the past GSoC? My answer sounds cliche, but I like cliche :P I learned about the power of community in open source. The nice thing about community is how can we share ideas, help, and grow with each other. There are many "crazy" and intelligent people out there who always willing to help you. For me, OpenNMS is a little bit special, people there ,are very kind! Even they kind enough to answer question that actually very simple (you can find the answer in the documentation). I thought that they will flame the person who asked such questions but they didn't.

Regarding technical skills, I learned a lot also. I learned to use new tools like SVN, Maven, and Eclipse plugins. In the beginning it's a little bit difficult to use these tools especially SVN, Maven. But once I got the grip on those tools, I felt those tools are amazing. SVN is like time a machine! You can track any changes you made to the source code, check out any revisions, the ACID properties also far more better than CVS.

About the other GSoC students, hmm I feel like they are really nerds (sorry guys haha) but they are very passionate about what they're doing. It's a pity that I cannot meet some of them in Google Zurich because I'm too lazy to apply for visa :D

Overall, I must say that GSoC is recommended for those of you that like programming and want to contribute to the Open Source community. Just believe me guys, it's so much of fun! Although sometimes it's frustating :D A bit of advice for future applicant, try to access the source code as soon as possible, so that you can see the big picture of the software and try to guess in which part of the code that you will make change regarding your project. Write your proposal as early as possible so that the community can provide the feedback to it.