This summer has been full of activity; mentoring, migrating, and kayaking. By far the most rewarding of activities has been my involvement in the Google Summer of Code program and volunteering for the Joomla! project. When Joomla! first announced its need for mentors this summer, I jumped at the opportunity to help and support the project as well learn more about the code and its inner workings. Since, I was and am unable to participate as a student, then mentor I had to be.

Although, I am quite knowledgeable in many areas of technology and have worked with PHP, Javascript, XML, and other bits of code. I would never call myself a coder by trade, I am a web site designer/developer and integrator, before this a systems administrator. Need less to say I was quite intimidated and unsure of how I would be able to support my student through the process. So, my immediate thought was to focus on the application design. One of my first statements to Luis was, "there is a right and wrong way to build an application." The idea was to produce a solid application based on the MVC design pattern and strictly adhering to the guidelines provided by Joomla! in developing apps for 1.5. Why? So, that any developer may understand the code upon view and be able to extend the application. In my view a well written application is a driving force for extension and adoption.

I am pleased to see that my approach worked as a new mentor and student. Luis' application is shaping up quite well and I am proud to be a small part of the process. I am also proud to have worked with Luis and learned as much from him as I provided guidance. This mentoring student enjoyed GSoC 08 and looks forward to another. I highly recommend that anyone interested in being a part of this program dive right in! I did and had a blast!

Much Thanks to Wilco Jansen for giving me the opportunity to participate and the other mentors for their support and community. And Thank you to all the students who participated this summer and created some great for Joomla!. Awesome job lady and gentlemen!