Following on from the previous article “Open source summer is here, welcome to the Apache APISIX project!” We have invited two students who participated in the summer of Programming last year. Both students are now Committers of Apache APISIX and mentors of this year’s community project.

Sharing guest: Wu Shuyang

Wu Shu jiyang

Xiao A: Shu Yang, please introduce yourself briefly.

My name is Yiyiyimu. I graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University last year and will start my Master’s degree in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology this August. Tributary Technologies, the commercial company behind APISIX, now maintains the open source community full-time and is the Committer of Apache APISIX and Chaos Mesh projects. Last year, I participated in the “Summer of Programming 2020” and completed the “EtCD V3 protocol support” project at Apache APISIX, which was also the main update point of APISIX V2.0. Later, I was honored as the outstanding Student of “Summer of Programming 2020”. I will continue to participate in “Summer of Programming 2021” as mentor this year.

Xiao A: Why did you choose to participate in the summer of Programming last year?

Shu Yang: Last year, due to the epidemic, I had time to stay at home with my parents. So I tried to find a remote internship project. Fortunately, I found an open source community activity (here is an advertisement for our company that we work remotely). Summer of Programming has a very high acceptance rate compared to GSOC and Community Bridge because there are more projects and each project is guaranteed to have its own slot. Last year’s figures were: 397 projects, 219 applications and 185 wins. It has a selection rate of 85%, and more than 99% if you include three projects, so I can be selected as a person of The Github Contribution Graph who is basically white.

Xiao A: After listening to Shu Yang’s detailed introduction, Xiao A here again encourage you to sign up for Apache APISIX community project!

Xiao A: Why did Shu choose the Apache APISIX project last year?

Shu Yang: I cut out the PPT from last year’s meeting. For students with clear interest goals, naturally, they don’t need to consider how to choose projects. But what if, like myself last year, I don’t know how to understand the project after a circle. At this point you might want to go with the project with the highest number of Stars, but in fact the highest number of stars is an indicator of how popular the project is, not a “community activity” indicator of how much help it is getting from the community. An active community will help you at both stages, providing enough help to get started and enough feedback to maintain the community later on.

Shu Yang: The indicators I chose at that time were the issue response status (can I get a reply in time when I encountered a problem at the beginning), the number of Good First issues (whether there is a good issue to start with, not only to increase the understanding of the project but also to check more face) and the Insights indicator (the overall community activity). This year we also wrote a check in the company contributor of small tools (https://www.apiseven.com/en/c…

Before I joined APISIX last year, I had no understanding of the technology stack required by the project, including Lua/Openresty/ ETCD and even API gateway. However, I was able to get started quickly. With the help of documents to run the program to run a few demo can be completed very quickly, Lua also half a day can be used. Here are two Openresty tutorials from APISIX PMC Moonming: the free Openresty ebook and the paid Openresty Geek time course.

Small A: Community activity is very important for open source projects, and Shu Yang’s introduction is very detailed.

Xiao A: Shu Yang, what is your biggest gain from participating in the Apache APISIX project?

Shu Yang: The biggest gain was knowing how a large project works for the first time. Maybe because I changed my major, the projects I did in school or by myself were only toy projects. Participating in the open source community was the first time that I learned how to develop and maintain a project used in production. In the community, I will also meet various great gods and friends who love open source, which is a very happy experience. I also want to thank Mentor Nic-Chen for taking the trouble to guide me.

A: How do I become A committer in this activity? Can you share some of your experiences with us?

Shu Yang: The main reason is that we have contributed a relatively large feature. In addition, because we are an open source community, sharing and collaboration is a very important part of the community, helping others in the community, responding to issues, review PR, and participating in the discussion of new features on the mailing list are all important parts of participating in the community.

Xiao A: What do you want to say to college students who want to participate in the Summer of Programming 2021?

Shu Yang: We hope that you can register more, don’t worry too much, and communicate with the community more. You are very friendly and enjoy the development experience for the past three months

Sharing guest: Bai Zeping

Bai Zeping

Xiao A: Hello, Zepin. Please make A brief self-introduction.

Zeping: MY name is Bai Zeping. I am a junior majoring in business Administration in Tianjin University of Commerce. I have been teaching myself programming since I was in junior high school, and it has become one of my interests. My area of expertise is mainly back-end, Web front-end development, and I have also guest starred in Android development, mainly using Golang, PHP and Javascript.

Xiao A: Why did you choose to participate in the Summer of Programming last year, the Apache APISIX project?

Zepin: When I was using the Apache APISIX gateway control panel, I found some unsupported features, so I submitted some code to improve the features. The community leaders were very helpful, and I learned a lot, which gave me the motivation to participate in the open source project. I applied for GSoC for other community projects before Programming Summer started last year, but wasn’t selected, and then saw programming Summer 2020 promotion and signed up.

Xiao A: You have become the tutor of Apache APISIX project this year. What tips can I give you for project application?

Zepin: In your project application, describe your idea for the current project solution or the related technical roadmap, and also give a brief description of the process to achieve the project goal (starting from each small module to achieve the project goal) and the approximate time required. Other information is required such as personal introduction. The above content can help us quickly identify your ability and project plan, which is helpful for project application. You can also contact your project mentor in advance for more comprehensive project information.

Xiao A: Give the students who apply for the project the key points. When applying, we must pay attention to the aspects mentioned by Zepin.

A: Zepin, this year you became A mentor for A community project. What would you like to share with us about the change in your role?

Zepin: I got a lot of guidance and help last year when I attended the Summer of Programming as a student. If you choose to participate in the Apache APISIX community project this year, I will also be there to help you get started.

Xiao A: What would you like to say to students who want to participate in the summer of Programming 2021?

Zeeping: Summer of programming will help you hone your skills and get you up to speed on open source projects. There are many opportunities to apply for projects and it is not difficult to submit the materials. I hope you do not hesitate to participate!

Apache APISIX

Apache APISIX was donated by Shenzhen Branch Technology to Apache Software Foundation. It is a new generation of cloud-native API gateway that provides rich traffic management features such as load balancing, dynamic upstream, grayscale publishing, service fusing, authentication, observability, and more.

Apache APISIX is the fastest graduating project of the Apache Software Foundation, with nearly 200 contributors worldwide and a very active community. Apache APISIX is already used by hundreds of enterprise users worldwide to handle core business traffic, including finance, Internet, manufacturing, retail, operator and many other industries.

Summer of Programming 2021 the Apache APISIX community reported 24 projects, including not only code, but also documentation, short video production.

If you are interested in the Apache APISIX project, please don’t hesitate to sign up!

Apache APISIX community project: https://summer.iscas.ac.cn/#/…