Meeting Charleston

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, I was unable to attend a physical meeting to fulfill the requirements for this blog post. I was originally planning on going to either the Data Science meetup, or the Linux Users group. Being the avid Linux user that I am, I was disappointed that I was not able to attend the meeting and potentially learn interesting things about the Linux operating system. I also have great disappointment for the missed networking opportunity that the Data Science meetup could have given me. This unforeseen pandemic has definitely disrupted the ending to this semester, and  presented me with various challenges that I had to overcome. Although I was not able to attend an event this year, I do have a past experience with the Linux Users Group. When I was a child, my father actually took me to one of the meetings while he was attending classes at the College of Charleston. Although I do not remember much from the meeting, I will say that my interest in Linux was sparked because of it. The experience is one of the earliest memories I have of the operating system, and had a great influence on me at such a pivotal formative age. The meeting showed me the passion of the open source community, and how such people find joy in open source computing.

Chapter 9

With this project coming to a close, I am grateful for all of the concepts and skills that I have learned from this class. Although it was not the capstone that I was expecting, being responsible for contributing to an open source project has proved to be widely beneficial for my professional development. This class has broadened my horizons, and shown me the diverse world that open source development. I find beauty in this community driven software development. It exemplifies a passionate community that is looking out for the good of its people. They produce and maintain good software that will be in turn, used to create more good software and products that everyone can use. It is a beautiful cycle of code production that anyone can be involved with. Being familiar with this type of software development process, although not conventionally data science related, is still a skill that every prospective tech professional should be familiar with. I am glad that I was required to be exposed to this different curriculum as I feel that it has given me invaluable experience for my career in the industry. Data science is not just about finding meaning in large data sets and performing analytical tasks; a data scientist that is familiar with software development can prove to be an irreplaceable team member, and a great asset to the community. Chapter 9 outlines the end of a software project, and explains various concepts to ensure the smooth transition to the client. This chapter provides meaningful information for the hand-off to the client, and discusses the different choices a developer has to provide their client with the working product for years to come. There are many options in terms of transitioning to professional support, and hosting the code on a clients server for relatively cheap.