2018, my favorite year so far, has come to its end. So, I decided to recap what happened in my life this year, as well as to tell about events I haven’t covered yet.
2018 was the first year for me that started with exams. Not that I haven’t spent holidays studying for exams before, though, so with some persistence and tangerine fuel ? I passed them all good enough and had a week of TV series and open source contribution before the upcoming semester. With some help from Halium project maintainers and a steep learning curve, I was finally able to conquer graphics libraries on an x86 Android phone and start a Wayland compositor. At the same time, my efforts on the Russian-speaking KDE community became visible, as our friendly local group crossed a symbolic border of 1000 members!
The new courses at university were difficult at first, so I had to really focus on my studies. I had a nice weekend break at the C++ Russia conference, but otherwise had been immersed, and that helped me catch up and finish the freshman year proudly. ?
In July, August, and September I could finally participate in the world of free software again. I was mostly focused on Plasma Mobile, KDE’s mobile platform, and KDE Russia. I prepared and gave an introductory talk about GNU/Linux on mobile devices, then developed and launched the kde.ru website. I’m thankful to Chaos Constructions conference managers and local FOSS news platforms for the chance to promote KDE’s amazing work to wider audiences. ?
VK Hackathon
As part of an amateur yet motivated team, I was working on a corporate assistant application for the State Hermitage Museum. Our aim was to provide a 3-in-1 cross-platform solution: a task management system, an internal messenger and a navigation system (Hermitage is huge). The deadline was tough, but we managed to deliver a working prototype.
Our application was not selected by case managers, but the atmosphere of passionate hacking is unforgettable. Besides, some of my work went upstream and will benefit many applications to come 🙂
ICPC NEERC 2018
My second time in this competitive programming contest as a Technical Committee assistant. It is an amazing experience, as well as a steep learning curve. Thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s programming competitions at ITMO University, both teams
Rust
An ordinary algorithm class assignment can become a challenging experiment if you give up on your habits and try solving it using a different programming language, like Rust. I’ve had a deep dive into the Rust ecosystem, implementing some algorithms, trying a game framework and building a research web browser (with small fixes along the way).
I’ll definitely continue learning the ways of oxidized metal in 2019! ?
To the awesome new year!
Let 2019 be even better for us all! Thank you for reading, and all the best in 2019! 😀