Intro What if someone wasn't applying for GSoC...

Daxter

New Member
tl;dr Wanna check what you guys are working on, with working on it as a goal I cannot right now achieve, due to me noob. Also Conclusion ->

So, before the introduction itself, I believe there is a need for a disclaimer (aka. messier introduction).
Hi, as you will read summed up below, I call myself Daxter, and I happen to be a university student in my very early years (see. second) in an Electrical and Computer Engineering school, of a Technical University. I found out about your project via GSoC, but, to put it bluntly, I do not have the skillset or alternatively, the experience necessary to be competitive in the selection process (nor do I want to take a slot, that a person more suited to than me could take).
Still, to keep things very very simple, I am really interested in this project for reasons associated with the principle behind the game/project.
So, since I realize that GSoC is but one means of entering such a project, that simply happens to come with bonuses, I decided to try the independent approach. I want to become, slowly over time, a contributor to this project, without the GSoC strings attached, in order to get all kinds of experience from the process.​

  • Name: Orpheus 'Daxter' Xenakis
  • Social: Here is a Facebook account that I do not use, but can serve as a secondary communication channel (notifications turned on to reach me through e-mail).
  • From: As partly apparent from the name, from the (//TODO *insert exuberant praising adjective here*), and known-to-be deeply humble, Greece
  • Skills / Tools: Painfully few, and to an extent uncultivated. Have worked with C (Codeblocks and Netbeans), and soon will have worked with Java (Eclipse), both to the extent that I can confidently say I can learn and adapt readily to any new relevant or somehow similar knowledge coming my way, in a short amount of time (Similarity/Relevancy not limited to those languages, nor coding alone, I feel confident in my capability to handle new knowledge in math, and I have a reasonable background since my University is a polytechnic one).
  • Found via: Google Summer of Code, of course, since it is this time of the year.
  • Interests: Short version of what interests me in Terasology is : Game -> Minecraft-inspired -> Fully modular. Of course that is not enough info, therefore, I'm--
  • Building on it: I'd be lying if I said that my attention wasn't initially drawn here by the name of Minecraft. What made the decision for me though, was the promise of a fully modular game, and the thought of contributing to such a project. Breaking anything (in this case a game) down to lower- and lower-level building blocks, and building up from that, is an idea that kind of fascinates me (love coding itself for that reason); so a game that promises exactly that for the end-user instead of the developers only, is naturally very appealing.
  • Extra: The last information that is important about my case, is clarifying at least short-term expectations of this interaction of mine, with the community (both your expectations and mine, and clarifying to you as well, but mainly to myself).
    • For now and the immediate short-term future, all I want if possible, is the most basic of pointers, to links and pages about where I should start, the basics of setting up, all under the assumption that I have no idea what is going on (of course I have looked around and still am as we are talking--(er... you're reading), and I do have some at least basic understanding of how such projects work), but I think it best to assume nothing, so that I can be sure-footed in acquiring knowledge. Included in that info, are the optimal ways of communicating with people, and asking general questions (I assume specialized questions have clear places to be asked in the forums).
  • Blabber goes here: So, as a bit of probably not redundant context:
    • I understand that this period may be (or probably is) hectic due to the GSoC process and everything related, and at the same time, I will be doing this with 0 starting experience; therefore at least for the immediate future, my presence anywhere except question-asking pages will be nil.
    • All I want out of this period, is to get a start, a hook, which I will use to set up, at a later time (Google *Summer* of Code brought me here). Long term, I also am not setting significant goals, apart from being ready to participate in some project in next year's GSoC, on something from this organization if possible (though GSoC is for introducing people to the project... Existing members of any form shouldn't be allowed to join, that'd defeat the purpose, huh... oh well, point remains, that is my target capacity (perhaps a very low bar, I know)).
    • Of course those are my "official" goals, which are limited by a pinch of pessimism, and most of all, realism. Ignoring those last, unimportant concepts, I actually want to get my hands dirty in this project, when at some point I do get the proficiency to do so.

Conclusion: I am here to first of all learn, and I look forward to learning (hopefully) with some help/guidance from the people here. I also look forward to being able to give back to the project some day soon.
This post is a declaration of interest and intent, though I am still not fit to contribute. Thank you in advance for everything.


P.S. Any and all feedback, no exceptions, is welcome, if not sought after. This introduction included, as well as matters of approach, mindset, work conditions, recommended shampoo, anything. I am here to learn after all, so criticism, constructive or not, considerate or not, is always something to be looked into... I think I gotta make this into a signature.
 

Anthodeus

Member
Contributor
Hey there Orpheus and welcome!

As it seems a thing of interest from your description, I'll firstly post the necessary stuff for setting up the workspace and all. For a start you can get the full wiki here, and a more specific setup here. You could join us on IRC for questions regarding the project in the #terasology channel or maybe the slack chat, but @Cervator might need to do that bit (not sure what permissions I have)

The project itself is made up of modules that communicate with a core subset of systems which define the engine. You can see most of the module code stuffs in their respective git repos here. You could read up on a few to see how one should look, or browse through its code, and then (or even before) check out the module setup stuff here.

I think that covers the bare basics, so now get your coding socks on and dig through the repos :geek:

There's no pressure to participate in GSoC, but you should really look into the open bite sized issues of the project and maybe try to get some of them done, or at least attempt one, ask questions, try to implement something and share. Rince and repeat if necessary. There's no real reason to fear making mistakes, writing bad or inefficient code and whatnot, since having it pointed out is how you really learn this stuff. And the really really important bit, Cerv is passionate about his 4 space tabs, so if you don't do it in the IDE he'll mention it :p

Do also look through the GSoC idea list. You might get an heading on what you wanna do or work on. Maybe one part of the project that you like more than others. Or maybe you had a really good idea for an item or mechanic in minecraft that you've found in no mod ever, and you wanna implement that. Endless possibilities, and you can work on all of them :D

Now, to the important matters. Shampoo brand and type really depends on the type of hair you have, or even if you follow it up by conditioner. Some are not compatible with conditioners, while some types of hair shouldn't be washed with certain shampoos. If you wanna use a shampoo for your beard, that's a totally different matter entirely. Since the type of hair wasn't mentioned, I fear I will let you look about the implications yourself (not to say I'd know what to say if you did mention type of hair)

If I missed anything, do mention what you might need :fluttersquee:
 
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Daxter

New Member
That was thoroughly informative, on pretty much everything I think I'm gonna need. I think this all will keep me occupied for a while, gonna see to establishing IRC contact right now (or as far as I can get if permissions + absence of mod is a problem) (nope that was for slack), so that I get basic easy comms. The rest will come with time. Thanks for the kickstart, will be seeing you around. Maybe I can keep you posted on the shampoo research that I gotta also do now. If interesting results pop up, I'll tell you.

EDIT: Connected IRC, waiting for some kind of admin at some point in the future to invite on slack (I'll get to askin' later), thanks again for all the info.
 
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Skaldarnar

Development Lead
Contributor
Art
World
SpecOps
Hi Orpheus and be welcome!

To get an even easier entrance to this project you can have a look at the tasks we handed out for Google Code-In 2016. There is a page in our wiki, as well as the list of completed task for MovingBlocks. You can try to work on some of these as an exercise, or catch up some ideas and start working on a simple module on your own. We will try to help you as best as possible to get started, and we are happy to have you on board!
 

Daxter

New Member
Hi Orpheus and be welcome!

To get an even easier entrance to this project you can have a look at the tasks we handed out for Google Code-In 2016. There is a page in our wiki, as well as the list of completed task for MovingBlocks. You can try to work on some of these as an exercise, or catch up some ideas and start working on a simple module on your own. We will try to help you as best as possible to get started, and we are happy to have you on board!
Those look like they will be helpful as a stepping stone, thanks for pointing me there, that is one page that I wouldn't find for some time probably.
I have some slight clarifications that I want, about the forums here (communication of all kinds is my priority). How is it best to reply in general threads to a person. In this thread, I am the owner so I want to be aware of everything, all notifications are turned on, and in similarly important threads, I will be following pages so I will see everything. Apart from following pages, what else triggers notifications for most users? I understand that you can't be following ALL the posts of new users for updates, but direct replies/quotes are an important thing to reply to. Could I have left a textless quote of your post in order to draw your attention, as in other forums? What are the conventions? Am I looking for info that would probably come intuitively later? Yes I am, no regrets.

Thanks for all the info, and be patient with me, I will get it all right someday.
 
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Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
Logistics
SpecOps
Hi @Daxter and welcome :)

You can "watch" individual threads (top right) for stuff you find interesting, and tag specific users in a post using @ then username and they'll get a ping in their alerts (same when you get pinged, and quotes auto-ping I think). The forum activity isn't overwhelming so you can sometimes get away with simply reading everything new to stay up to date. Mark all threads as read one time then you'll have an easier time spotting new stuff. Nice toolbar near the top:
Looking forward to a long term goal to somewhere!
 

Daxter

New Member
As soon as I get over the short term ones, I will make sure to give myself something to aim for! (Does that sound like something a procrastinator would say?... Welp.)
Still, thanks for delivering that info to me, I feel less daunted already. Sorry for not feeding your rainbow addiction, but merit recognition is more important than simply rewarding effort. Yes, I am heartless and cold like that.
Thanks again, and I will try to see when I can make the aforementioned "immediate future" pass.
 
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