GSOC 2024

Programming a big project is like eating a 20 inch pizza by yourself. If you think you can have it all in one day, you are wrong. Even if you are eating just one grain of that pizza per day, it still counts. I am not saying that you should work less, I am saying one should aspire to work everyday no matter how less or more it is. Because some days you just, just can't do what you had planned to. In those days you can't just go on a disheartening streak and go on a bad spiral. You just gotta believe that in the long run you will get it done. It's very easy to say this, but man doing one thing everyday when you are not able to see much progress is hard. fucking hard.  Maybe I will reach the end, I am certainly hoping too and I want everyone else to be hopeful too.

 So 27th May was the first official day of GSOC when coding begins. I know I could have done more preparation but I am not too sad with the results. I was able to show my mentors a basic beginning of the layout. I am using the holoviz ecosystem to make the dashboard. The base is panel itself.  I went through many of the tutorials and came to realise it is quite suitable to what we need from the dashboard.  Doing this project is not say for example an extremely challenging or difficult problem/job. It's mostly a problem of consistency working on smaller issues and try to get hold of the bigger picture and be consistent in doing your work. I am excited to strive for the best and fulfil not only my mentors expectations but my own expectations with myself.   

 It was a frustrating experience, don't know what is wrong with conda and pip, they are like the wife and mistress who can't live together. But after a lot of tinkering I was just able to balance the environment with the perfect blend of dependencies. I can freely test out holoviz now.

 So earlier during pre-gsoc period I had setup my environment in base itself and then just a few weeks back I shifted to python venv as the Hendrics dependencies were clashing with Stingray's.  After setting up the venv specifically for stingray so that I can test it's functions and API, I went on to explore the different libraries to plot the data we are generating. Holoviz seemed a good option and installation was a breeze but these packages were specifically in conda. As a result I was not able to access the packages from the venv at all, as it had its own conda environment to run from. Now I thought why not make a docker and work in base from there.  But I came to the conclusion that it's an overkill solution and would be too much of a hassle. Later on,  I went on to make a fresh conda environment for stingray too and currently am in this process.

 So it's been a week of meeting and discovering the idea of the project. I have done some reading to know what science is going behind stingray. Now comes the part of implementation. How do you connect everything in a dashboard and make it fluid and interactive. Of course there are tool and libraries for this, but the main question is how do you make this sustainable? Holoviz is one of the options I am considering to go with!! Let's see how it goes.

 So I had recently shifted to Bangalore and this new pg and everything was quite new for me. I was eating from my PG mess and eating a lot from Zomato. I guess I ate something bad and had quite severe diarrhoea. I consulted a doctor online from practo and how lucky could I be to get a doctor who prescribed me so strong meds that they had side effects on me. Firstly I was dizzy throughout and quite tired. Then instead of loose stools, I stopped having stools altogether. It was a bruh! moment.  So I had to go to a hospital and get some blood tests done because I went to some online consultation. For anyone reading this. Don't use practo man.. Moving on my weekend was quite unproductive but I am much better today and will do my best to stay healthy from now on.

 I am able to allocate more time and can do this..yoo

 I am having trouble allocating enough time to GSOC. I guess I am too tired after coming back from RRI and then going back. Also little things take too much time and eat up the time allocated for GSOC. I planned today's day quite well and will stick to my timetable to see how it goes.

 So I have been travelling and finding a PG since a day. Was only able to give 2 hours to the project yesterday. Today I was much settled and was able to devote more time. I guess this is because Bangalore is a new city and it's taking time to get adjusted. But I have to manage time properly because for me it is the most precious thing. 

 Had my first meet with my GSOC mentors: matteobachetti and gullo. It was a cool introduction. They are astrophysicists themselves. How cool is that! I am super excited to learn and work with them.

 Damn, till yesterday I was contemplating that I won't be selected. But today at 11:30 pm when I got the mail that my proposal was selected, my happiness knew no bounds.  But the job has only started. There is so much to learn and do and what not. Letsssss goooooo!!! https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2024/projects/rba4Di99