My Google Code-In Experience

This year, I participated in Google Code-In 2018, a contest for pre-university students to get familiar with open source software development. The contest started on 27th October and ended on 12th December. In GCI this year there were 27 open source organisations that provided us with various bite sized tasks so that we could learn and contribute to their community.I worked with Drupal, an open source content management system that provides us with all the tools we need to build our own website.

Each organisation selects 2 of their best contributors from across the globe and name them The Grand Prize Winner. I was adjudged the Grand Prize Winner by Drupal for my work in the contest.

I am a web developer and when i started i had no idea which organisation to pick. I looked for organisations with tags html, css, javascript and php. I picked Drupal as it required web development and provided a platform for that. The beginning was a little rough for me, my whole day went in watching tutorials and reading documentations on drupal.org, which i am grateful for. I slowly learned my way through by installing and using different modules and themes along the way.

Drupal

Drupal is an open source content management system that provides the public with a platform for building websites easily. Drupal provides full support to all beginners by adding documentations for each problem one might face setting up. Drupal's community is very helpful and active. At first i didn't know how to contact or communicate with the community, thanks to documentations on getting involved i was able to connect to IRC and contact my mentors and co-participants and talk to them.

My First Task

I started GCI with simple tasks like creating t-shirts and a logo. I thought i would do the tasks i already have knowledge about but i was wrong. After a couple of tasks, I started picking tasks related to drupal modules, about which i learned along the way and completed tasks. I learned a lot about how to use new modules, even the modules without instructions. Gradually, I created a lot of websites, configured many modules, created drupal themes with twig, created my own blog etc. Google Code in helped me master the technicalities and mechanics of Drupal.

Co-participants and Mentors

Mentors of Drupal were really supportive and encouraging. They helped whenever I had any issue and guided me to the correct way to fix the issue. They were constantly available on IRC channel and solved our problems. Same goes with my co-participants, all of us interacted with others and helped with any problem. All of us having relatable problems helped us bond and get involved.

My Experience 

When I started with my tasks, i wasn't as thrilled as I eventually got. With each task the zeal in me to learn more increased and wouldn't rest. Day and night I just sat in front of my laptop and learned something or the other. There were times when i installed drupal core 15 times a day just because a module did not work. A task required a screencst of a module, I wanted to do that task so badly I installed Drupal core on 4 different systems, and 3 Virtual machines just to see what the problem was and still couldn't fix it. Then I took the help of a mentor in figuring out the issue and he solved it very easily.

I started contributing to the community very late. At first it was just about completing tasks, but then i realized most of the tasks involved the community. After my first patch I started thinking of ways of contributing. From now on my searches weren't "How to install " but " How to fix ", and that pumped me more and more to get involved with drupal.

After a couple of patches I started loving Open Source, how the community devotes and knowledge to contribute. Developers from all over the world sharing and fixing each other's code for Drupal. The work ethic and interest towards Drupal amazes me.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would thank Drupal and Google again for providing this wonderful opportunity to learn about so many cool and useful things.I will continue to contribute to Drupal as i love the idea of my own code being seen and shared to the world, my small code being a part of a big piece of a much bigger organisation.