Presenting myself to the community and GSoC 2011

["João Paulo Melo de Sampaio" <jpmelos@jpmelos.com>]

Hello, people.

I intend to present myself to the community here. I'll keep it as
short as possible.

My name is João Sampaio. I am a Computer Engineering student at
Federal University of São Carlos, from Brazil. I'm very proud to be a
student of one of the best Computer Engineering courses in the
country. I'm 21. My English is 98% fluent, which means that I can read
and write everything but I might miss a couple words or sentences here
and there over voice communication like Skype and phone and you might
not understand what I'm saying, eventually. Nothing we can't overcome,
though. My mother language is Portuguese.

I've used only Linux (mainly Ubuntu) for a few years now. Therefore,
I'm familiar with UNIX systems and it's code production tools (gcc,
gdb, vim, ...). I've never put my C knowlegdes to real test, but I'm
very much confident in them. This is the first real project I intend
to contribute to. I also know C++, PHP and Python for programming
languages and (X)HTML and CSS for the web.

I'd like to state here that I'm interested in participating in Google
Summer of Code this year, and as I've heard early applicants get
better chances, here I am. I've already started studying Git and I've
installed and am testing it in my computer. I have had very little
previous experience with version control systems, but I'm a fast
learner. I have a few friends that already participated in previous
GSoC and they are also giving me some hints.

I want to participate in the Git project because (a) I find version
control an interesting subject; (b) I'm much more motivated to work
with low-level languages like C than high-level, in which most other
projects are written on (even though I do like Python a lot); and (c)
Git is widely used in important projects and it would be awesome to
have my name related to it.

If I happen to capture your attention, I'd be willing to talk to you,
especially if you are going to be a mentor in GSoC! I'm excited to get
involved and we can already start to know each other to get ready for
GSoC, if you want!

Thank you for your time,

-- 
João Paulo Melo de Sampaio
jpmelos@jpmelos.com
Computer Engineering Student @ UFSCar
Website: http://www.jpmelos.com