We are the inchworms and we chose that name because the coding process for us is like crawling inch by inch. Also we like this video.
We’ve been working with Rails Girls Summer of Code for two weeks now and here is a short review…
In the first week we tried and managed to get the hang of the Ruby framework Sinatra. In the second we were busy with screencasting our newly acquired knowledge for other beginners. The first week went pretty fast, the second was a bit exhausting because we had to review and redo everything on a Mac with an older version of Ruby (previosly we both worked with Ubuntu). But also we learned a lot! Primarily how to cope with failure.
We’re both in the rubymosters project group, where we meet once a week and learn how to code. It was there we first heard about the Rails Girls Summer of Code. Since we both enjoyed learning how to code so much we thought RGSoC would be fantastic to participate in: we could spend every day, not just one evening a week, learning.
Our RGSoC-goal is to understand how to build a couple of sample apps with Sinatra, produce some screencasts for installing and working with Sinatra, refactor some Sinatra tests, and in the last month build a web application for the visualization of a large public dataset of EU farm-subsidies. We will do this together with the open knowledge foundation.
We choose the Sinatra project as it’s a ‘lighter’ and more basic framework than rails. We thought it would help us understand on a deeper level how rails and all other web application frameworks operate. The motivation for the visualization-project was to build something useful that helps make sense of a large dataset about an important EU program. We also want to help the open source community and give something back.
The happiest moment was when we got code working on a first attempt without resorting to google or asking for help.
If we could code anything in the world Anja would like to code a new internet without surveillance, or at least a mail program with easier encryption, and Carla would like to recode her own brain.
We have learnt that work isn’t finished in one day, that you have to think a lot about the code and how it could work (or work better), and that you have to get used to failure :-)
I guess you are as curious as we are about our teams, right?
So from now on every week we’ll present a team to you that will tell us a little bit about themselves, what awesome stuff they are up to and how things are going.
Later today we are beginning with the Berlin based Team Inchworms. Stay tuned to learn more about Sinatra, what Carla and Anja’s happiest moment was so far and how they came to their team name.
Our journey has begun and we’re right on track, code island starboard ahead!
Since July 1st we wrote 222 emails, 133 blog posts have been posted by the teams, they spent more than 99 hours of coding - and this is only the beginning!
It’s been now 12 days since the summer of code officially started and here are the students of 12 teams saying hello world and obviously being super happy about their Summer of Code! Thanks to everybody who made this happen ♥
It’s finally arrived! It’s 1st of July and the Summer of Code starts in 3….2….1…..
HAPPY SUMMER OF CODE EVERYBODY! We are so happy to have you all on board and we are so much looking forward to spending a fantastic summer with you. We couldn’t be more excited!
To make this wonderful day even better, we are proud to announce this wonderful news:
The amazing girls from Unerdwear are supporting Rails Girls Summer of Code! Because they don’t have money to give they will give nerdy boxers. Yeah, you heard right! Read the full story on their blog.
They will produce a limited Rails Girls Edition of unisex Nerdies and donate all the profit to RGSoC. WOW, this is such a wonderful idea. We just can’t decide, which of the wonderful designs we should pick - so we need your help:
Vote for your favorite design!
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more:
Two teams have already blogged - Read about their first day:
Got some spare time and a knack for PR, community management, Sponsoring or Coding? Awesome!
We could use some helpful hands and can offer a wonderful summer of experience and of course cat gifs ;)
Part of the reason is that [Sven] (http://twitter.com/svenfuchs) will have to step back from working on Rails
Girls Summer of Code a little bit starting July and focussing on [Travis] (http://travis-ci.org)
again. During the first weeks he will still be available about half-time and
[Anika] (http://twitter.com/langziehohr) will continue to be available full-time, sponsored by Travis.
These teams would love to have you:
1. Campaign and Sponsors management
Sponsors need to be paid special attention to until after the program as much
as possible … eventually they’re the ones who allow us to pay so many people!
2. Helpdesk and Team Supervision
The idea is to organize remote support
(answering questions on IRC etc) for when teams get stuck and local coaches
aren’t available.
3. Blog, Newsletter and Press
This team writes up news in order to keep our community in the loop, and tell
the world about how the teams are doing, whats going on and share some nice stories.
4. Website
This team takes care of the website and makes sure it stays up to date with the
progress of RGSoC.
The team is still looking for someone with design skills and others who’d
like to help out.
5. Teams App
The app should be mostly done before July, but might need updating once in a
while.
Sven can still take care of this for the time being, but it would be cool if
someone with solid Rails dev skills could take this over.
