Meet the GForge Team: Kyle Goranson
This is a big year for GForge Group — we have redesigned our flagship product, GForge As, and are relaunching it as GForgeNEXT. This Spring we announced that NEXT is now available in free, private beta. Behind the scenes our team of developers has been working many long hours to bring this new product to market. Over the rest of the summer, we will be posting a blog series entitled “Meet the GForge Team.” In this series will be spotlighting each member of our team, their backgrounds, roles, and unique perspectives, so you can get to know the faces behind the software at GForge.
Summer is in full swing and it’s apropos to kick off this summer series by highlighting our interns.
Kyle Goranson
Intern, GForge Group
Where do/did you go to college?
Coe College
What is/was your major?
Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics
When did you learn to code?
My first formal coding experience (also my first reasonable language) was my computer science 1 class in my Sophomore year of college in which I learned on C++. But my first coding experience was creating programs on my TI-84 calculator in high school, which I figured out myself, and looking back, programming in TI-basic was absolutely horrible.
What is your favorite project you have developed?
I’m going to have to go with a group project that spanned a full semester which was building a class registration system in C#. But it’s not the main part of the assignment that makes it my favorite. My group was fairly far ahead so I decided that our registration system would be better if it had a retro arcade hidden within it. So I wrote Pong, Snake, Space Invaders, and Pac Man. All of which I made as close to the original as possible. To get to the arcade, on our login screen you needed to enter your username and then enter the konami code instead of your password.
What are you doing at GForge?
I am primarily working on developing an Android app for GForgeNEXT, and I am also expanding test coverage.
What attracted you to work for GForge?
I worked with Michael Tutty during HackISU where I was building an app that was integrated with the GForgeNEXT REST API. I really enjoyed the interactions I had with him.
What is your typical day like at GForge?
The first thing I do is check to make sure my queue is up to date and then join the standup. When the standup is done, I will move on to working on whatever I have for the day. When I run into issues I will ask a question in chat and this will sometimes turn into a hangout where we figure out the problem. Somewhere in there I will take a break for lunch.
What is your dream job?
That is a good question. I have no idea. Definitely something involving programming though.
When you’re not working where can you usually be found where? Doing what?
I can usually be found at my computer even when I’m not working. I will often be playing an online game with friends, the most common of which is League of Legends.