Hey, I’m David Sn.

18 years old, turns caffeine and pizza into code.
Also previously known as Codebucket.

Today I am writing my final task for Google Code-in 2017, which is the blog post you are currently going to read on. Some of you may also know that last year I also participated in Google Code-in 2016 (which you can read about here) and that this time it was my very last participation. Now after I’ve finished writing this blog post, my mentors will review it and then they will pick the finalists and Grand Prize Winners in the next days.

This year I’m taking part in Google Code-in for the second and last time, as some of you might have already noticed that I will be 18 years old next year. However, it doesn’t keep me from sharing my experiences I gathered last year in this post, especially useful tips for newcomers who might want to join Google Code-in during this Christmas season. This guide is not only for Google Code-in beginners, but open-source in general.

I know that many of you will not care about this blog post anyway. No matter if it was on the timeline or posted somewhere in a group, some will even certainly not think about it. These are the prejudices and first impressions of my person that are stuck in your head. But is it the right way to avoid a person like that?

You may have probably already heard about “Lawnchair” from several Android news sites or blog posts. It’s an open-source launcher based on Launcher3 which brings Google Now and dozens of settings to help personalize your home screen on every device. You also might have read about Till Kottmann, the creator behind the launcher, but not about the rest of the team behind Lawnchair Launcher.

Over the past month I have been participating in Google Code-in (#gci2016) and it has been a great journey for me! It is all about FOSS development, and all of the challenges and skills involved. I discovered it through a recommended blog post written by m4tx, a graduated student from my school who participated in 2013. After reading his blog post, I got motivated to follow his workflow and chose to do tasks for Wikimedia. So after studying the contest rules, I signed up for the contest and got my first task started.