Summer of Love 2010 with OGSA-DAI

OGSA-DAI, a name that became the highlight of the year 2010. When we reach the climax of Google Summer of Code, I have to mention that it has become one of the sweetest memories of my 2010. Working with OGSA-DAI team is an amazing experience. We discuss about almost everything over the irc. It varies from Web Services to Neural Networks, Sri Lankan tea to Colombian Coffee, and Databases to Grid Computing. Apart from the scope of the Summer of Code project, I am pretty sure that Michal (my GSoC 2010 mate in OGSA-DAI) and I were able to gain a considerable amount of knowledge on OGSA-DAI as well as the technologies that are used. The super-friendly environment of OGSA-DAI team is one of the best learning platforms that I have experienced, During the last few months, while working with the presentation layers, I was also able to play with the code base, and experiment with it. 

Developing a presentation layer for OGSA-DAI is a challenging, but an interesting task to do. I started to write an article on how to write a presentation layer for OGSA-DAI, soon after I completed developing the SOAP based layer, which I later found more SOAP and CXF biased, when I started working with the ReSTful layer, which made me postpone releasing the article, as it obviously needs further modification. Officially Google Summer of Code completes by tomorrow, and of course, that just completes the direct involvement of Google. After taking a short break for my final exams, I will be back to OGSA-DAI on 6th of September. A compatible community is always a great motivation for a FOSS developer. With a strong community, OGSA-DAI becomes an ideal project for someone who is passionate on Software Development. 

At this moment, I should thank my mentors Ally Hume and Bartosz Dobrzelecki for the great support and motivation they offered throughout the project. My Special thanks goes to Mario Antonioletti for his constructive thoughts and help when I first applied to GSoC, as well as his encouragement throughout the project timeline. My sincere thanks to Mike Jackson for providing help in setting up the tests and release builds in the server, effectively managing the project. I should also thank Neil Chue Hong for administrating Google Summer of Code this year, providing updates and assistance to students and mentors from OMII-UK. Thoughts of the core team members Charaka Palansuriya, Carlos Buil Aranda, Tilaye Alemu, and Amy Krause were always fascinating and highly motivating, and the OGSA-DAI family is really a nice environment to work with. OGSA-DAI is a team with strong bonds, and we all love the cute hexapus!