old wiki Lin Alg Report

==My Project== I proposed a linear algebra module for !SymPy including the standard stuff like determinants, inversion and such

==Pre-SOC== Contacting the project member was a good idea. I got great feedback regarding my project content and difficulty. Also, meeting people (even if via email) was great since they were very cool and put me at ease.

==Startup== First piece of advice: contact your mentor ASAP and set down a schedule or plan of contact and stick to it. Constant contact with your mentor is key.

The best thing to do when learning the code is to pick a simple module is deconstruct the code. My !LinAlg one is pretty straight-forward (hint, hint). So pick one and really figure that code out. Maybe write a couple of play function here and there.

==During== Second piece of advice: keep in touch with the community via the mailing list. They have great ideas of possible suggestions.

I had a very nice outline thanks to the mailing list members and so coding it all out went quite smoothly. Working on my own time takes a bit of discipline so I tried to keep the same stretch of a few hours free for work everyday.

I suspect one of the things that help out a lot is to overestimate the time you think things will take. I got sidetracked more than once writing additional functions I needed.

==Wrap-up== I finish my content a bit early so I wrote a tutorial and an extra function or two. This is where the mailing list was very handy since they helped suggestion addition work I could take on.

==Overall== I think that SOC programs vary from group to group. I can say that !SymPy is an exceptional project to work for since everyone is active and patient with newcomers - which is always appreiciated.