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5 Rules I Had to Break to Create a Senior Project that Rules

with 8 comments

After spending eight months on GNOME Do, I gave a brief presentation (followed by a great, not-so-brief Q&A session) to an auditorium full of Computer Science students and faculty. In the presentation, I discuss five “rules” explicitly and implicitly imposed in undergraduate Computer Science coursework that I had to break in order to create GNOME Do. I urge students studying Computer Science to break these rules too, by getting involved in free and open source software projects.


Written by Dave

June 9th, 2008 at 1:13 am

Posted in Computer Science, GNOME Do, GNU/Linux

« Computationalism and the Extended Mind
Announcing GNOME Do 0.5: “The Fighting 0.5″ »

8 Responses to '5 Rules I Had to Break to Create a Senior Project that Rules'

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  1. Well said! I found a lot of these rules being broken at Purdue when profs that normally taught grad students taught undergrads. They don’t care about these rules which, as you’ve so elegantly shown, hinder learning in many critical ways.

    Thanks for such an awesome project! I use Do hundreds of times a day. Ever thought about a deskbar/spotlight type interface to it? I’m a huge fan of Mac OS’s latest Spotlight.

    Luke Hoersten

    9 Jun 08 at 9:05 pm

  2. A good presentation..

    Phani

    10 Jun 08 at 9:28 pm

  3. Hurrah! Serious props to you and the project. Congrats on 0.5!

    Gabriel

    11 Jun 08 at 1:38 pm

  4. Just notice that Do is the “Launchy for Linux Gnome”. Wonderful work.

    It is sad that I started my own open source projects after I became a graduate. I should have done more if I started in my senior year. :-)

    Lex Y. Li

    12 Jun 08 at 12:33 am

  5. Rimsky went look closer buy cytotec dead hand held.

    Pwhndvve

    9 Aug 08 at 12:48 pm

  6. Google should know–font sizes are relative, and the container of text should also be relative.

    I can’t read the last two lines of nearly every slide because my high-resolution screen requires a 117 pixel dpi.

    WallPhone

    14 Aug 08 at 11:17 pm

  7. [...] imagine the apocalyptic response from the faculty if someone tries to do this in a college here Do check out his presentation [...]

    Eh? » Senior Project

    7 Oct 08 at 12:19 am

  8. 89 Ways for You to Become the Coolest Programmer in the World…

    Since there are dozens of posts on becoming a better developer, but no single post with all the advice you need, perhaps, you’ll find this short guide useful.
    1. Learn the Skills You Need

    Learn the programming basics

    “The goal of this guide is to b…

    Effectize

    28 Oct 08 at 12:59 am

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