Re: [Info-gnuprologjava] Google Summer of Code

[Daniel Thomas]

On Wed, 2011-03-30 at 12:26 +0100, Simon wrote:
> Hi there,
> I am hoping to contribute to GNU for my Google Summer of Code project,
> and thought that your branch of the company seemed interesting and
> challenging to work in.
> 
> I am a second year computer scientist studying at the University of St.
> Andrews.
> 
> I have programming skills in Java, Python, C, Haskell, HTML, Javascript,
> MIPS32 assembly and some in CLISP. I do not know any Prolog, but have
> been wanting to get into it for a while, and this seems like the perfect
> opportunity. I have experience in implementing programming languages
> through a project for my university which involved creating a C-syntax,
> strongly and dynamically typed turtle graphics language in Haskell.
> 
> I thought that implementing part two of the ISO standard (Modules)
> looked like as good a choice as any for the project.
> 
> Would someone in your team be able to give me some pointers for writing
> up a project proposal? If you have any other questions to see if I would
> be a suitable candidate, please do not hesitate to ask.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Simon Brand

Hello Simon Brand,

It is great that you are interested in this project. In terms of writing
a proposal you will need to use the GNU template listed on
http://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/guidelines.html

I really want to see patch(s) before the proposal deadline so that I
know that you can work with the code. If you check the newmaster branch
out of git:
$ git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/gnuprologjava.git
$ git checkout newmaster

Having done that and with maven and sonar http://www.sonarsource.org/
installed and configured correctly then running
$ mvn sonar:sonar
should run the kind of static analysis you suggested in your later
email. You might want to create a patch to fix any obvious flaws or bugs
which that shows you.

Alternatively/additionally https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?32560 looks
like it should be an easy bug to at least confirm or deny. If you add a
suitable test to the inria suite in test/inriasuite/assertz and then run
the tests using
gnu.prolog.test.GoalRunner --once inriasuite.pl run_all_tests

Currently the output from the inriasuite gives "The following *10* BIPs
gave a total of *26* unexpected answers:" due to a combination
non-standards compliant code and incomplete tests.

If you send in patch(es) then that will demonstrate that you can use the
code base and help me assess your coding skills.

If you have used Java before then I assume that you know Eclipse? I am
using Eclipse for development work. We use Ant for building and git for
version control are you familiar with those? I doesn't matter too much
if you aren't as they shouldn't take long to learn.

Have you made contributions to other open source projects in the past?
(again not necessary but interesting)

I hope that that helps,

Daniel

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