[L2Ork-dev] GSoC '19

[Jonathan Wilkes]

Hello Tsz-Kiu,

Welcome!

I made some responses inline below...

On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 6:35 PM Tsz Kiu Pang <osamupang at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I am writing to express my interest in working on Purr-Data in the Google Summer of Code.
>
> I was just looking at the project suggestions on Jonathan's GitLab page, and am interested in a couple of them.

Btw-- if you have a potential GSoC idea that isn't listed there, feel
free to add it or ask about it here on the list.

>
> The first one is making a REPL interface. As someone who insist on doing most of the work on the command line, this project sounds really interesting to me. I would be very keen to explore how to communicate with embedded device locally or via ssh. Although I have never use Pure Data in any embedded device (apart from a small attempt of using pduino), I am eager to learn more and eventually develop a user-friendly REPL interface for Raspberry PI and other devices.
>
> The second one is encapsulation ergonomics. As a Pd user for slightly more than two years, I do find abstraction a troublesome process in Pd. This project sounds like a great opportunity to rewrite some of the code that would make abstraction a more natural process in patching. Although the GitLab page does not specify the language(s) required for this project, I am assuming C would be a prerequisite?

Yes, C. And possibly a trivial bit of Javascript to add some menu options.

>
> These two sounds almost equally interesting to me.
> It would be great if you would kindly suggest which one is more beneficial to the Pd community.

The encapsulation idea would probably immediately benefit current Pd users.

On the other hand, the REPL idea could potentially open up new ways to
create and interact
with Pd patches.

>
> Also, I am just wondering if there are any suggestions in applying for GSoC and writing a project proposal?

You might begin by compiling Purr Data from source using the build guide here:

https://git.purrdata.net/jwilkes/purr-data#build-guide

Since you are already a Pd user, you might then roughly outline the
features you would like from a
successful implementation of either of the ideas you mentioned above.
What would it feel like to
use the new encapsulation features, or to interact with Pd through the
REPL? What new possibilities
would these features provide that is not currently possible in Pd?

Then see if you can figure out which sections of the source code would
be touched by either idea. If
you can, try to rate each part as to which will require the most work.

One thing I'll say about last year's GSoC-- we used an incremental
approach to the project. This meant
that Pranay submitted fairly self-contained code patches at each stage
of the project which could
be merged into master without any conflicts. This turned out to work
really well. For the two project
ideas you've mentioned, I believe it should be possible to take a
similar approach. So see if you can
divide the project up into fairly self-contained sections.

Finally, feel free to post to the list or email me if you come up with
more questions as you flesh out
the idea. (Also, it is possible to submit more than one proposal if
you have the time to flesh out
both idea. Though I imagine as you start to investigate them you may
begin to favor one over the
other, which is fine.)

> I am aware that the application starts in a couple of days, so I apologise if this is too last-minute.

Definitely not too late.

>
> Something about myself:
> I did my undergraduate in Music, majored in Composition during my honours year. I started to use Pure Data about two years ago. Thanks to Pd, I became interested in computer music and digital signal processing. I am currently a Master student in electrical engineering at the University of Melbourne. I have only started programming (apart from Pd) last year but now I am a tutor in programming/computing in C at the University. I insist on doing most of my work on the command line, therefore I also know the basics of bash scripting.

That sounds like a great starting point. We look forward to your
application! And again,
email us if you have any more questions.

Best,
Jonathan

>
> Thank you very much for your time.
>
> Kind regards,
> Tsz-Kiu
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