Summer projects (preferably open source) for college sophomores | Hacker News Reader

Summer projects (preferably open source) for college sophomores

I am the parent of a college sophomore. My son is learning data science in the US. He likes computer algorithms and computer security and is willing to code or contribute otherwise. Please suggest meaningful projects (preferably open source) to do over the summer. He can work on them for about 120 hours.

I ask here because he'd like the form of project to be semi-formal (no remuneration is expected, only fun and challenge are what he's looking for) and also because people here are very knowledgeable.

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How about Limbo, the SQLite rewrite in rust?

https://github.com/tursodatabase/limbo

Thanks! I agree that (like Doug Crockford advises) one should learn as many programming languages as possible, however, Rust may be a stretch for him; although I am convinced that he should study Rust sometime soon. But this may help him understand how a cutting-edge, fast-paced development occurs in the open-source world.

> I am the parent of a college sophomore. My son is learning data science in the US.

This is nice and all, as a parent. But I am sort of scratching my head wondering why the son is not posting themselves.

In my experience of seeing hundreds of posts over the decades like this, the key resourcefulness to do good work is also the same compulsion to post for this kind of advice themselves. Without knowing your background, surely a student (your son) studying data science, is far better suited to finding a project that a) matches their skillset and b) matches their interests.

If my son was trying to find a project I’d be telling them to find one themselves, not asking others online on their behalf.

I agree. I have asked. But the parent in me wants his lack of self-reliance in this respect not to hamper his prospects. Some people learn some things more slowly (than other things). If he is going to learn it the hard way, how long am I willing to help him? I don't know. I certainly hope he learns this before I die!

I will try again. Believe me, I hate helicopter parenting.

But if you have some concrete projects in mind, please don't keep yourself from posting them here just because one was asking about them for someone else.

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