Introduction & Interest in Contributing: Subhodip Patra (SDE Intern & Math/CS Background)

[SubhodipPatra]

Hi everyone,

My name is Subhodip Patra, and I am from India. I am writing to formally introduce myself and express my strong interest in joining the GeomScale community and contributing to the dingo project.

About My Background:
I recently completed my Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Statistics (Honors), followed by my MS in Computer Science. Additionally, I am currently starting my journey as a Software Development Engineer (SDE) Intern at Infinite Locus. Because of my dual background in theoretical mathematics and practical software engineering, I am deeply fascinated by the intersection of high-dimensional sampling, convex polytopes, and metabolic network analysis.

My Understanding of the Project:
I have been exploring the dingo repository and I am very impressed by how it leverages Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods—like the Multiphase Monte Carlo Sampling (MMCS)—to analyze metabolic networks. I also understand how critical the C++ backend (volesti) is for generating the steady states efficiently, and how dingo maps these mathematical concepts into usable Python tools for Flux Variability Analysis (FVA) and Flux Balance Analysis (FBA).

How I Hope to Contribute:
Given my statistics and programming background, I am particularly interested in:

• Statistical Convergence Diagnostics: Looking into how we ensure the MCMC chains have mixed well (e.g., expanding on the Potential Scale Reduction Factor checks and exploring effective sample size estimators).
• Algorithm Profiling: Learning how the Python-C++ bindings work to see if there are any optimizations to be made in step-generation.
• General Maintenance: Helping with any "good first issues" to familiarize myself with the codebase while applying the engineering practices I am learning in my SDE internship.

I am currently setting up my local development environment with all the necessary dependencies (Boost, lpsolve, pyoptinterface). I am eager to start my open-source journey here, learn from the core maintainers through code reviews, and help improve the project.

Please let me know if there are specific areas or open issues where a beginner with my background could be most useful right now. I truly want to join your community and start contributing, so please guide me on the best way to get started!

Best regards,
Subhodip Patra

[SubhodipPatra]

@vissarion @TolisChal @dymil @hariszaf

Hi sir, I just posted my introduction in the General Discussions. I am very eager to learn and start contributing to GeomScale!

Could you please guide me on what I should look at first? If there is a "good first issue" or a specific area of the codebase you'd recommend I start with, I would really appreciate your mentorship. Thank you!