Introducing Team Melbourne!
Hello from Aussie! We are Sarah and Vi, and together we make up the student part of Team Melbourne. We will be spending the summer working with the wonderful people from Discourse.org and our coaches, Jo, Adel and the amazing people from Redbubble.com
#####Who are we?
Sarah: Pursuing a degree from Melbourne that has zip nil to do with Computer Science. I took up a concurrent diploma of Informatics in order to receive formal instruction. Just returned from a semester abroad in Philadelphia where I trained in the despair of C language and was amazed at the strong emphasis and seemingly endless opportunities for technology and coding in the U.S. I love adventure sports and yoga!
Vi: I run a very small online business selling exam preparation content and look for projects that look interesting (and hopefully have the opportunity to do). I started to learn to code in late 2013 to be able to support my online business and have been addicted since. I love how creative programming is and was blown away by the generous open source community.
#####How did you hear about the SoC and why did you apply?
Sarah: There’s a lot of emphasis on connections, many times my friends assume I find out about opportunities through personal connections. But no, that’s not how I found out about this. The internet is my best connection! On the net one link led to another, and I found out about the Google Summer of Code. I was curious, and more searching led me to many other open source programs - RGSoC being one of them. I applied straight-away once I found a lovely pair (Vi) and a very supportive community in Melbourne.
Vi: I heard about Rails Girls Summer of Code through a google search and via the Rails Girls Community. I wanted to apply ages ago, but could never find a pair that could take 3 months off. Luckily, I got hooked up with Sarah through the Rails Girls Melbourne community - Yay! Around the same time, I was playing around with using Discourse to create an accounting forum and also wanted to serve ads on it, so I sent an email off to Sam, one of the co-founders of Discourse as to whether they’d be interested in advertising as a project for Rails Girls Summer of Code. They were! and so we made an application - it seemed like the right time, right project and right pair to apply.
#####What project are you working on?
We’ll be working on making an advertising plugin for Discourse.org. Discourse is a 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the internet that works as a mailing list, discussion forum and long-form chat room. We know it’s simple purpose, but advertising is something that users of Discourse want because it makes the operating of their forums financially sustainable. It’ll be interesting and challenging technically because we get to look at Discourse, Ember.js - a javascript framework and learn javascript and various advertising platform APIs.
#####What are you most looking forward to this summer (winter in Melbourne)?
Sarah: Winter in Melbourne is Spring-like temperature in Canada/New York. It’s erratic with cold winds, but it won’t snow. Isn’t that cruel? :-( Why go through all that when there isn’t going to be any reward (the snow)? Jokes aside, I’m looking forward to learning, breaking and making things happen!
Vi: Not getting the flu… nah, I’m looking forward to learning about new things and most importantly, contributing to open source. I’ve used open source so much in different web apps and am grateful to those who make open source. I’m also grateful to have to opportunity to be able to contribute to it, with such fantastic coaches and mentors. Also… working with Sarah (who is an absolute delight!) is another thing I look forward to.
Our team twitter account is @teammelbkoala - Do follow us to keep updated on our progress.