I have decided today (a little late I know!) to apply to Google’s Summer of Code 2007 scheme. This is a scheme which you get to work on a open source project for three months with the aim to provide some code which will be used by the project. You also get paid for doing it which is a nice bonus!
I am going to apply to Boost C++ to do their “Big Integer” project (http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?Google_Summer_Of_Code_2007#big_int). This will be concerned with creating a C++ class template which can be used to represent arbritrarily long numbers, something which computers inherently cannot achieve using standard programming constructs.
The project will hopefully enable me to gain valuable insight into the coding process which an open source project goes through. I just hope I am selected for the scheme now!