GSoC Journey: 2nd Week of Community Bonding
Hello folks,
If you don’t know me yet, I’m Senthil Athiban, a final-year undergraduate student at the Madras Institute of Technology. I’m thrilled to be a GSoC student in 2024 at OpenMRS. If you haven’t checked out my first week of the GSoC journey, be sure to read my previous blog post to catch up on the initial stages and introductions. In this blog post, I’ll be sharing my experiences during the second week of the Community Bonding period in my GSoC journey.
I was selected for the project “Validation Rule Builder for the Form Builder” in OpenMRS. The objective of this project is to design and implement an efficient user interface validation rule builder within the form builder. My primary mentor is Dennis Kigen, and my backup mentor is Hadijah Kyampeire.
Community Bonding
At OpenMRS, we use Slack as a communication platform. I have been actively communicating with both of my mentors through Slack channels. They welcomed me warmly and congratulated me on my selection. Over the past week, we’ve had some great conversations.
I started creating Notion documents to detail my upcoming progress. These documents include what I plan to do in the initial phase and my technical approach. I also created a Q&A document where I noted down any doubts or questions that arose as I worked. I shared these Notion documents with my mentors, and they provided valuable feedback and assistance with my questions. Based on their feedback, I started to work on my progress and made some modifications to my plan. This included refining my approach to certain tasks and updating my timeline to ensure a more efficient workflow. The feedback helped me to clarify my doubts and provided new insights that I hadn’t considered before.
One significant change was in the way I approached the design of the validation rule builder interface. Initially, I had planned to implement it in a certain way, but after discussing it with my mentors, I realized there was a more user-friendly approach. This adjustment not only aligns better with the project goals but also enhances the user experience for those who will be using the form builder.
I also learned the importance of clear and continuous communication. Regular check-ins with my mentors helped me stay on track and ensured that any potential issues were addressed promptly. Their guidance has been invaluable, and I’m grateful for their support.
Looking ahead, I’m excited to continue this journey and make significant progress in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more updates on my GSoC experience with OpenMRS!
About Me
I’m Senthil Athiban, a final-year undergrad from India. Days are for VS Code, nights for GitHub — a constant journey of coding and exploration, fueled by passion and curiosity.
GitHub: https://github.com/senthil-k8s
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/senthil-athiban-m/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/senthil_k8s
