Development:Interviews:Desmond Elliott

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Originally published by Ludovic Hirlimann on août 25, 2006 12:47 PM at http://perso.hirlimann.net/~ludo/blog/archives/2006/08/camino_interview_1_desmond_elliott.html

Camino Interview #1 : Desmond Elliott

This is a first in a series of interviews I will conduct in the Camino community, so people get to know who besides Pink works on our beloved browser. My first guest is our Google Summer of Code tab coder.

Ludovic Hirlimann: What is your name ? Where do you live ? How old are you ?

Desmond Elliott: My name is Desmond Elliott. I live in Edinburgh, Scotland. I am 23 years old.

LH: For how long have you been using computers ?

DE: Roughly 11 years. My first computer was an Apricot 386-SX 16.

LH: What was your first machine ? How long have you been a Mac user ?

DE: Whoops, jumped the gun back there. It was the Apricot computer and it ran DOS 5. I have been a Mac user since Spring 2002. My first Macintosh was an iMac G4 700 - I'm typing on it as we speak.

LH: Care to give us more information on your main mac machine (speed ram etc ...) ?

DE: I normally use a MacBook Core Duo 1.83 with 512MB RAM, but I poured a bottle of juice over that so I'm back to my iMac G4 700, 384MB RAM. It is painful.

LH: How did you learn about Camino, the Camino project, and what was the first version of Camino you used ?

DE: Since I bought my iMac I've known about Camino, I think it was called Chimera back then. Apple bundled Internet Explorer 5 with OS 10.1 and that was an ugly experience. A friend re-introduced me to Camino about 6 months ago when she told me that it was the only browser that she could use to access her wireless router's admin page. The first version I used was 0.8.

LH: What pushed you to join the developers of Camino ? What do you enjoy in being a developer of the browser ?

DE: I wanted to spend the summer working on something that was relevant to what I am studying at University. I applied for a place on the Google Summer of Code Program with Mozilla to work on the Camino browser. The desire to work with a team developing a piece of software that hundreds of thousands of people actually played a massive part in pushing me into joining the Camino project.

DE: I enjoy working with people who are able and willing to share their knowledge and experience with me. There is a lot to learn and everybody involved in the project is busy with their own lives so it is great when people take some time to explain something to you. It reminds you that they are really into what we are doing.

LH: Did you have any previous experience with open source software ?

DE: No.

LH: Was it difficult to reach other developers and become a member of the community ?

DE: Not really. There is an IRC channel on irc.mozilla.org where the Camino developers - and some lurkers, you know who you are! - hang out and you can normally catch a developer or two who can help you with any problems you might have.

LH: Anything you'd like to add ?

DE: Yes - be a good nightly build user!