Yesterday, we reported that this year’s Summer of Code had come to an end.  Google provided a lot of statistics about the program, and the whole thing sounded very impressive.  Today, we got the chance to talk to a student who was actually involved.

Shashank Agrawal is enrolled in a dual degree program at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad.  During Google’s Summer of Code, he worked with Sakai on a collaboration and courseware management platform.

The specific project’s quite interesting.  Agrawal explained that it "will enable users to edit web-pages inline," or in other words, it "will allow users to modify web-pages from client side while they are viewing it."  You can’t get more user-friendly than that, and a lot of applications seem possible.

Agrawal also picked up a lot while working on it.  He wrote, "I learnt how an open-source product is developed step-by-step, how people help each other out, how they manage to be in sync despite being geographically distant, how tasks are planned and executed, how issues are resolved; and the tools which help in managing all these processes. . . .  And above all this, I learnt how to work collaboratively."

As for the Summer of Code program as a whole, Agrawal came away equally impressed.  He wrote, "SoC exposes you to the indispensable open-source communities which are doing tremendous useful work."  Plus, "Students who successfully complete GSoC definitely have an edge over others during interviews for jobs.  It makes a significant contribution to the resume."