My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade in the software industry

Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by p4bl0 on Sunday August 01, 2021 @09:11AM (#28026036)

I'm a CS associate professor. I teach a course which consists in contributing to a free software, in third year at my uni. A few years ago a couple of students decided to make a contribution to GNU ls. The change was to have the output color independent of capitalisation (it is based on filename extension). Their code was accepted. It was a tiny tiny contribution, but it's probable that these few lines of code are and will be executed a few thousands times more than all other contributions my other students made.

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by antoviaque on Sunday August 01, 2021 @06:50PM (#28030933)

That's great to see this course -- there aren't enough good courses materials on how to contribute to free software, and it can be quite intimidating the first time. Yet, it can definitely be one of the most rewarding development work...

With others from a few large free software projects & communities (Open edX, OpenStack, Framasoft, Mines-Telecom...), we are in the initial stages of producing an online course / MOOC about contributing to free software. If you (or anyone else reading this :) ) are interested in contributing or joining the project at this early stage, please let me know. : ) My email is on my profile.

Presentation site (draft): https://larrybotha.gitlab.io/mooc-floss/ Repository: https://gitlab.com/mooc-floss/mooc-floss

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by p4bl0 on Monday August 02, 2021 @03:16AM (#28033769)

Yes I know about this project. It was launched by Marc (from Mines-Telecom) who is a friend of mine and took the idea from my course (I originally asked him to teach it with me as he is quite involved in open source through the Inkscape project). I'm really glad he went through with it!

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by antoviaque on Monday August 02, 2021 @11:03AM (#28037428)

That's great! :) Hope to see you around sometime - we have regular meetings, feel free to pop in anytime :) (this is true for anyone else, too!)

https://gitlab.com/mooc-floss/mooc-floss/-/issues/40

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by inson on Sunday August 01, 2021 @03:16PM (#28029010)

That the best way of teaching CS! Bravo! I wish the US professors have the same attitude like yours.

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by ozarkerD on Sunday August 01, 2021 @12:32PM (#28027526)

Man I wish my college offered courses like these. I don’t regret getting my degree but I sure didn’t get much out of it besides the piece of paper that made me hire-able in some people’s eyes.

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by inamiyar on Sunday August 01, 2021 @09:46AM (#28026199)

That's so cool! Are you able/willing to share the course name/a course page?

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by boulos on Sunday August 01, 2021 @01:23PM (#28028073)

Looks like https://pablo.rauzy.name/teaching/2016-2020.html#ddll (via profile)

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by aiisjustanif on Sunday August 01, 2021 @12:45PM (#28027666)

Glad to see France promoting meaningful experiences for CS students.

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by iamcreasy on Sunday August 01, 2021 @12:28PM (#28027492)

That's great! Did you guide them through the process? Did you motivate them in any way?

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Re:My tiny side project has had more impact than my decade i... by matheusmoreira on Sunday August 01, 2021 @07:37PM (#28031301)

Sounds like an amazing class.

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