Google Summer of Code questions.

[RavUn]

I've heard a few classmates at school talking about the GSOC and I'm very interested in it. I've never worked on a big team project, though and I'm always feeling under-qualified when it comes to looking for jobs or projects.

What is expected from students participating in this? I know C++, java and PHP. I can create very good PHP web applications and I know all aspects of OOP and data structures and I'm at the top of all of my programming classes. However, I still don't really know what's expected of a team project and my assignments are always console applications so I've never worked with user interfaces.

I've been wanting to start on some project from freshmeat.net but i really don't even know where to begin there, either. I love programming, I just wish I could find a place to get started. I assumed college would teach me everything I needed to know :/

[tadcan]

The basic format is a student works on a specific project which is over seen by a mentor. Have a look here.

http://code.google.com/soc/

The mentor is someone involved in that project and so can guide you on the specifics. There are many different types of projects which have been accepted. So have a look at the different projects which need coders. It can be for anything from the Linux chrome browser project to the new Haiku OS.

[ssam]

there is a list of the organisations at
http://socghop.appspot.com/program/accepted_orgs/google/gsoc2009

so for example if you prefer PHP, look at the PHP projects, or maybe wikimedia (i think media wiki is writen in PHP).

the best way to get involved in a project is to download the source code, figure out how to build and install it. try making a change to it. try fixing a bug. you may want to ask in the programming forum here if you need help on the first few steps.