A bit has happened since my last post on here, I really need to get more regular with this blog. Maybe they have fiber for blog writers/programmers…
Nonsense aside, the first major news is that it seems the SunPy organization must like me or something because I successfully survived midterms, got paid, and am still employed. At this point in my internship I’ve successfully written a module. It might not sound impressive and it might have a couple of bugs that I have yet to discover, but for me it’s something that I say with pride. I really didn’t have much experience with software development before GSoC and my knowledge of Python was at best rudimentary. My time during this program has consisted of pouring over tutorials, deciphering the interplay of the existing code in the SunPy project, dueling with Git, and struggling over each line of code in my module. It’s important to understand that I’m not complaining, because I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’m halfway through and I’ve learned a ton; I can only imagine what this next half will hold.
My experience with Git almost deserves a post to itself. It reminds me of a silverback mountain gorilla, very fast, tons of raw power, and under no circumstances should you ever attempt to make direct eye contact with it. By learning to proper incantations of ‘add’ and ‘commit’ you can eventually earn the trust of the beast, but approach with caution. Silliness aside, it’s a really power system of version control, and while I’m still mildly terrified of it, I’ll admit that I’ve enjoyed my transition along the steep learning curve of this tool.
On a final and unrelated note, I stumbled across this article and so far, this is probably the clearest and most straight forward explanation of Python decorators that I have come across. If they still confuse you, I recommend that you give this article a read. Kudos to Simeon Franklin for being able to explain it.
That said, I’m going to end this eclectic article. I’ll really try to make my posts more regular. Good night magical ether of the internet, see you again real soon.
My Summer of Code 2013 