Introducing myself to sympy and GSOC '26

[Palak Kumari]

Hello everyone

I'm Palak Kumari, a 3rd year CSE undergrad. 

I’ve recently started contributing to SymPy and worked on a small test fix in the matrices module.

I had a quick question about workflow. Is it okay to pick and solve issues without fully understanding the overall codebase structure first? Or is it expected to build a deeper understanding of how things are organized before contributing? Additionally, Is there a central place or pattern that ties these together like a main file, or is the logic distributed across modules like matrices/eigen.py, matrices/matrices.py, etc.?

I’m trying to find the right balance between contributing early and understanding the system properly.

Thanks.

[Peter Stahlecker]

Dear Palak,

I am just a user, but I follow the discussions between mentors and contributors closely.

Mentors are overloaded with often low grade PRs, it seems to me.

I would highly recommend you FULLY understand what you want to do.

Also, do NOT use AI when communicating with potential mentors, use your own English.

Do NOT rely on AI writing the code.

Peter

[Palak Kumari]

Hii Peter

I appreciate.

 
If you mean or feel, me adding low grade PRs to mentors' work, please guide me through making a better, useful and really high quality PRs, would be obliged.To understand fully, is why I need the mentors' guidance and I wrote it myself, why did you feel otherwise?

Thanks.

[AB]

I think what he meant was to not utilise AI tools for writing stuff u can write by yourself. This includes much of the code u will try to contribute, any messages or replies on GitHub or the mailing list, and in general any discussion with someone else.

You wouldn't like to find out that u are spending time trying to explain something to an LLM would you? It's the exact same thing that mentors hate in my opinion.

As long as they can trust that you are the one writing/discussing anything, I think that should be sufficient.

GSoC is for learners, I don't think anyone would expect of contributors to provide super high quality PRs right away. 

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Ayush

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