Hello world!
Tags: beginners
Published: 2023-09-07 02:16:57

Hi there! My name is Paul and I'm a student at [Seneca Polytechnic](https://www.senecacollege.ca/home.html) (Toronto, Canada 🍁) going for my [Bachelor of Software Development](https://www.senecacollege.ca/programs/fulltime/BSD.html).

I am currently employed as a Scientific Programmer / Analyst for Environment Climate and Change Canada for the Canadian Air and Precipitation Monitoring Network.

I am a Community Creator for Escape Simulator under the pseudonym [Zesty Mordant](https://steamcommunity.com/id/paulkim26).

I have worked as a Game Designer for Pine Studio and designed the newly released [Portal Escape Chamber DLC](https://youtu.be/qQplViipOW4?si=JVrURAJbsNzmkEtj) for Escape Simulator.

Things I like:
- Escape rooms
- Hiking
- Linux
- React
- Linters
- git
- Well documented APIs
- TypeScript

Things I dislike:
- Clubs
- Monopolies on morality
- Windows
- Propietary software
- DRM
- Draconian software licenses
- Dates formatted as MM/DD/YYYY
- Languages that (for whatever reason) don't work with git (i.e. can't merge due to auto-incrementing indices)
- Gatekeeping

This blog will chronicle my progress in the course [Topics in Open Source Development](https://www.senecacollege.ca/ssos/findwithoutsemester/dps909/sict).

## Why this course?
Aside from satisfying a credit towards my graduation, I am interested in learning how to:
- Collaborate with other software developers
- Contribute public code in a transparent way
- Work with best practices in software development
- Discover cool new software projects and fellows

I see value in the open source paradigm and community. The transparency, support, ease of use, diversity, and user/developer friendliness of open source is extremely appealing to me.

## Target Goals
I am seeking to have successfully contributed code to an open source project by adhering to the project's guidelines. I am looking to further my skills as a software developer and carry forward that experience into future projects in the workplace as well as in my own recreational projects.

I wish to work on projects that solve problems that I face and provide open source solutions to ones predominantly solved by proprietary software, such as:
- Calendar software
- CRMs
- CRUD apps
- Text/word processors
- Drivers

## Cal.com
The trending GitHub repo I forked for this first week's task is [Cal.com](https://github.com/calcom/cal.com) (my fork: https://github.com/paulkim26/cal.com).

[Cal.com](https://cal.com/) is marketed as "scheduling infrastructure for everyone" - it serves as an open source alternative to proprietary calendar/scheduling software such as iCalendar and Google Calendar. It is free for individual use with plans for teams and enterprise. 

I chose this project as I appreciate the project's design philosophy and focus on simplicity. Instead of trying to box users into its own ecosystem like its competitors, it encourages open and transparent connectivity with other similar services. It is in tune with modern user needs and provides the ability to:
- Share public links to calendars
- Allow people to coordinate booking times with one another
- Connect disparate calendar services
- Set buffers between booking times
- Provide screening questions to bookers

_Thanks for reading!_