Coder Application - Wildkins

[Wildkins]

Ckey/BYOND Username: JohnWildkins

Discord Name: Wildkins#8123

Position Being Applied For: (coder, mapper, spriter): Coder

Past Experiences/Knowledge: 

• BYOND: ~2-3 weeks of basic research into the codebase, and then shoving myself into every open issue I can get my hands on.
• Other: 
  • Graduating senior, attaining my B.S. in Computer Science w/ focus on Cybersecurity and Web Development
  • Experience in Python (incl. Django/Flask), Java, JS, and SQL-based DBMS

Examples of Past Work:

• Closed ~35 issues via direct bugfix. Worked alongside @Geeves and @skull132 to close ~250 total via identification and testing.
• Cooking Fixes
• Microwave Overhaul
• Yield Declarations
• Trap Refactor
• A large number of QOL and non-issued bugfixes, tl;dr: Merged PRs 

Additional Comments:

Obviously I’m still pretty new to both the community and BYOND, but I’ve thrown myself in at the deep end to try and make up for lost time. For me, seeking a developer position is mostly a convenience factor to better amplify my efforts - addressing issues promptly, fixing up quality of life where possible, and attending to user suggestions where appropriate. Things as simple as a vaguely shiny name and ability to throw icons on an issue tracker are honestly very valuable to this end. Furthermore, as I grow in knowledge and ability, I want to try my hand at tackling some of the larger, more pervasive issues in mechanics - but doing so without close partnership with the developers and heads will surely be an exercise in frustration.

[geeves]

+1

[Doxxmedearly]

I don't think there's a person in this server who hasn't noticed and appreciated everything you've done in such a short time. You also seem like a pretty friendly and approachable guy. 

 +1

[wowzewow]

hey no fair i dont get a fancy one

+1

[MoondancerPony]

Yes. One million times yes. Please, God. Personally, I feel as if everything you've done already amounts to a trial, so I'd be fine with you joining immediately, but I'm not in charge of that.

+1

[Pratepresidenten]

Get this dood on team, god damn.

WAAAAAGH!

[Omicega]

Hello,

As a certified CM addict, I only barely play here on Aurora but I take credit for bringing Wildkins here. I've known him for a long time now (since 2013? 2014) and he's always been nothing short of enthusiastic and personable when he gets involved in something. The poor guy is highRP as heck but barely even plays, as far as I know, because he's so busy staying up until 6am or something chasing bugs that he doesn't have time. Either that or he genuinely enjoys it, which is frankly frightening.

Anyway, I don't think my vouch counts for jack but I feel at least a bit compelled to say that he's a bright spark with an obvious flair for coding, and you'd be mad to deny him.

just don't ask him to code anything specific he won't do it even for his old friends

[The lancer]

This action has my consent.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

Just look at this man getting so much positive posts left here.
I'mma join them too. I love your work and I think you're very easy to work with from what I've seen.  +1 pretty cool guy

[Faris]

While your contributions have been considerable, I do remain curious on a few things. 

1- You’re new to the community, don’t believe I’ve even had the pleasure of seeing you play as I’ve been busy recently. What reason did you pick to stick around Aurora? 

2- Again, you’re new here. Why did you invest yourself so heavily? 

3- From what I’ve seen and people’s feedback on you, there’s a streak of quality to your work and in addition, based on the numbers you posted yourself, the volume of your contribution is substantial for such a period of time. Are you worried you might get burnt out quickly? 

[Wildkins]

6 hours ago, Aboshedab said:

1- You’re new to the community, don’t believe I’ve even had the pleasure of seeing you play as I’ve been busy recently. What reason did you pick to stick around Aurora? 

2- Again, you’re new here. Why did you invest yourself so heavily? 

These two are essentially related - for me, coding is as much a hobby as a career, and I've been looking for a project I could contribute to that I simultaneously enjoyed playing myself. Unrelated to that was a seemingly stable kick of SS13 that I picked up, which led to be shopping around to various servers I hadn't tried in a while - and I didn't stick to most, as @Omicega can attest. "HRP" servers were something I hadn't tried for a long time (I think the last time I joined Bay was around the time LLA was still kicking) but I found the transition somewhat easy and the server much more in line with what I was expecting from SS13. That all being said, I've played probably two rounds since last week, tops. I have maybe one regular character that people might recognize on a "oh I've seen them in a hallway once" - atmos tech James Sprey - and that's about it. But that just comes down to time. The only reason I wasn't playing on the server, especially this last week, is that I'd thrown myself in at the deep end doing nothing with my days but reading and writing code. It all started because I was annoyed I couldn't late-join as a medical intern, and then I realized I could fix up all the nagging little issues that I encountered while playing, and hey, maybe I could fix some other people's issues too - oh, and gee, wasn't the microwave annoying to use? Et cetera, et cetera.

The other factor that, I think, led to me sticking around was the support of the developer and contributor team, especially people like @Datamatt, @geeves, and even @Skull132. It was unusually easy to ask questions, submit changes, and get things done even when I was (and still mostly am) a complete nobody, and that made it a lot easier for me to fit in and feel at home quickly.

6 hours ago, Aboshedab said:

3- From what I’ve seen and people’s feedback on you, there’s a streak of quality to your work and in addition, based on the numbers you posted yourself, the volume of your contribution is substantial for such a period of time. Are you worried you might get burnt out quickly? 

There's no way I'll match the number of PRs I put out in my first week, for a couple good reasons - for one, there aren't that many low hanging fruit bugs. Most of the remaining issues on github are far more esoteric, either in reproduction or in cause, so they're not fixes I can bang out in an afternoon. I also happened to write all those PRs while on my fall break, which meant that I was putting all 12-16 hours into coding, sometimes more. That's obviously not sustainable in the slightest, even for someone like me that enjoys it! But I expect to constantly be working on both one larger content overhaul (e.g., microwaves) and then fielding bugfixes and smaller updates as often as I feel good doing, as I'm much more careful about pacing now that I have a better feel for how and why to do things.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Wildkins

[furrycactus]

The amount and quality of your recent changes have been absolutely phenomenal. You're doing absolutely spectacular work, and I also agree with Moon in that I personally think you've done more than enough work to prove that you're capable of being a great developer.

+1

[Flamingo]

Abo already asked what I intended to ask. I also know you already started your trial, but absolute +1. Some of these bugs have existed for literal years, and you've finally done what no one else has and just gone and fixed them. I hope to see you stick around the discords and perhaps as a fellow atmos tech we'll even play in-game together. 

[Arrow768]

Well, I forgot to take care of that.
Trial started on the 26.10.19

[Karolis2011]

I personally seen you do a lot of things quickly, and you quickly made yourself well known, but I am questioning will you be able to sustain yourself? Won't you burn out? So many of people on dev team often burnout and lose movement / motivation.

Your backgrounds looks solid, promise wise, but you are finishing degree in Computer Science, what's your other projects like? I am missing past work on other things that you stated you did, and probably did, but no evidence.

I haven't gotten a moment to take a deeper look at your work but it's looks decent-ish. I am keen on supporting you, but I am somewhat hesitant because of reasons mentioned before.

Feel free to hit me up in DM's on discord to get to know you personally.

[Wildkins]

3 hours ago, Karolis2011 said:

I personally seen you do a lot of things quickly, and you quickly made yourself well known, but I am questioning will you be able to sustain yourself? Won't you burn out? So many of people on dev team often burnout and lose movement / motivation.

As above, I moved so quickly purely to both bring myself up to speed in a language I'd not touched before and establish myself in the community, given that I was a complete unknown to everyone. It was a perfect storm of good timing and ample opportunity, and I've already slowed myself down considerably to pace myself because what I was doing is just not sustainable. Burnout is certainly a real thing and I'll do my best to stave it off for as long as possible, but that's always tied to interest. So far I'm feeling fine, though!

3 hours ago, Karolis2011 said:

Your backgrounds looks solid, promise wise, but you are finishing degree in Computer Science, what's your other projects like? I am missing past work on other things that you stated you did, and probably did, but no evidence.

I didn't link them primarily because I'm not sure how much relevance they'd have and it'd mean decoupling them from real-life information. I wouldn't mind sending those along privately with most of the revealing information cut out if you'd like to see them, but personally I'd rather be judged on the merits of my BYOND coding to-date.

[wowzewow]

i think it's going pretty well

Edited November 14, 2019 by wowzewow

[Arrow768]

Looks like I forgot to close that.
Application accepted.
Moving to the archive.