User:Ejls/GSoC 2012/Questionnaire - Revision history

Ejls: Formating

2012-04-10T02:38:45Z

Formating

Ejls: update

2012-04-05T20:31:47Z

update

Ejls: typo

2012-04-01T21:25:00Z

typo

Ejls: update

2012-03-31T05:12:01Z

update

Ejls: My answers to the questionnaire

2012-03-25T20:26:13Z

My answers to the questionnaire

New page

__NOTOC__<noinclude>'''Note: This is a template to be included in a proposal page by transclusion. All question are not answered here, you should refer to a proposal page.'''</noinclude>
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| style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 10px 5px 10px"|<h1>Questionnaire</h1><hr />
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| style="text-align: center; padding:0px 10px 10px 10px;"|[[#1) Basics|Basics]] - [[#2) Experience|Experience]] - [[#3) Communication skills|Communication skills]] - [[#4) Project|Project]] - [[#5) Practical considerations|Practical considerations]]
|}
===1) Basics===
====1.1) Write a small introduction to yourself.====
My name is Étienne Simon (forename: Étienne), I'm 20 years old and I live in Paris, France. I really enjoy programming, particularly in C++ and I would like to use my programming skills on a big project like Wesnoth. Also, this year I'll participate in [http://www.prologin.org Prologin] for the third time. It's the French national programming contest, which I have been 6th and two times finalist.

====1.2) State your preferred email address.====
Address (at gmail dot com): etienne.jl.simon

====1.3) If you have chosen a nick for IRC and Wesnoth forums, what is it?====
ejls

====1.4) Why do you want to participate in summer of code?====
First of all, I can say I have only theoretical knowledge so far and I believe thanks to a SoC on Wesnoth, I can gain lot of experience since I'll work work on a real project. In addition to that, like I said, I like programming, being paid to do what you like doing is quite cool. Besides, I'm using open source softwares a lot, so it would be nice if my first work could be for the open source community. And of course, for the T-Shirt.

====1.5) What are you studying, subject, level and school?====
I'm in third and last year of a bachelor's degree (licence) in computer science at Pierre et Marie Curie, Sorbonne Université ([http://www.upmc.fr UPMC], Paris VI), I mainly took courses related to algorithm and artificial intelligence. Next year, I'll start a master's degree in artificial intelligence and decision.

====1.6) What country are you from, at what time are you most likely to be able to join IRC?====
I'm from France, CE(S)T (UTC+1, +2 during summer). I always have an irssi running on a server, but I'm more likely to answer during the afternoon and evening. However before the end of the Spring term (4th of June), I'll be able to connect at these times only the weekend and on Friday, I wont be available before 6p.m. UTC for the rest of the week .

====1.7) Do you have other commitments for the summer period ? Do you plan to take any vacations ? If yes, when.====
My term (including exams) ends the 4th of June, otherwise I'm considering the GSoC as a full-time job (with more fun and week-end included), therefore I don't have any plans for this summer.

===2) Experience===
====2.1) What programs/software have you worked on before?====
Only school projects:

Two years ago (during my first year), we had to code a go/othelo-like game in C. I wrote the game with some extra: a curse interface, a simple AI (alpha-beta) and an AI using unsupervised learning, for this last part, I used NEAT <span style="color: #888; font-size: 0.85em;">[NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies]</span> (a genetical algorithm evolving neural networks), it didn't beat the minimax though :(. Total: 5000 SLOC <span style="color: #888; font-size: 0.85em;">[Source Lines Of Code]</span>.

Last year, we wrote a BASIC compiler in C (again). I improved the BASIC language a bit: support for array, UDT, function overload and operator overload, the support of references was buggy (poorly designed). Total: 7000 ugly, messy SLOC.

This year, we had to wrote an image manipulation program in C++ (finally!). I used Gtkmm (a C++ wrapper of Gtk+). The result was pretty good, documented with Doxygen and compilable with CMake or with a basic Makefile. Overall, It allowed me to get familiar with C++11 since before this project I've always used gcc 4.2. Total: 5000 SLOC (doxygen documentation (including code) available [http://epsilon012.free.fr/egami online]).

====2.2) Have you developed software in a team environment before? (As opposed to hacking on something on your own)====
The group projects that I worked in were about web development and database administration so I can't really say yes, but that's one of the main reasons why I want to participate in GSoC.

====2.3) Have you participated to the Google Summer of Code before? As a mentor or a student? In what project? Were you successful? If not, why?====
No, not yet. :)

====2.4) Are you already involved with any open source development projects? If yes, please describe the project and the scope of your involvement.====
No.

====2.5) Gaming experience - Are you a gamer?====
Yes, everyone like to play. ;)

=====2.5.1) What type of gamer are you?=====
Hum… I suppose the answers in this subsection can give you an idea about my type. If I'm playing a game it's to have fun, so I'm a "for the lulz gamer", but I suppose it's the same for most people.

=====2.5.2) What type of games?=====
Turn-based games like Nethack, Freeciv and of course Wesnoth. I enjoy both strategy and role-playing games, but I like to have time to take a decision.

I also enjoy programming games like jousting, golfing (with Vim) and programming in esoteric languages. For example, I have completed the three first questions of the French national programming contest's qualification in brainfuck, befunge and whitespace (code [http://epsilon012.free.fr/Prologin2012 here], including a 5289 instructions brainfuck program).

=====2.5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?=====
Players using original and unexpected strategy. The HODOR players were really funny, but well…

=====2.5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?=====
I tend to select a game on his gameplay, but when it misses a good story I'm less likely to play it.

=====2.5.5) Have you played Wesnoth? If so, tell us roughly for how long and whether you lean towards single player or multiplayer.=====
Not that much, actually I discovered Wesnoth 1.6 two years ago and I can't really say I've played it a lot since then. I prefer to play usually as single player, after completing most of the mainline campaigns (of which I really liked DiD), I played online, but now I'm mostly playing add-ons campaigns. As an indicator: I'm still unable to list drakes units.

====2.6) If you have contributed any patches to Wesnoth, please list them below. You can also list patches that have been submitted but not committed yet and patches that have not been specifically written for GSoC. If you have gained commit access to our SVN (during the evaluation period or earlier) please state so.====
I have been lurking the code for a good time now, in January 2011, I reported 3 bugs with 1-line patch attached:
*Two compilation errors: [https://gna.org/bugs/?17584 Bug #17584] and [https://gna.org/bugs/?17585 Bug #17585].
*A minimap bug: [https://gna.org/bugs/?17676 Bug #17676].
I have also written longer patches:
*'''(AI)''' [https://gna.org/patch/?3185 Patch #3185] <tt>power_projection</tt> improvement, it now takes in account future ToD and time areas, I also cleaned the code a bit (task from the [[EasyCoding]] page.)
*'''(WB)''' [https://gna.org/patch/?3201 Patch #3201] Make leader unable to move when invalidating a planned recall (fixes [https://gna.org/bugs/?19581 Bug #19581] that I found reading the whiteboard code.)

===3) Communication skills===
====3.1) Though most of our developers are not native English speakers, English is the project's working language. Describe your fluency level in written English.====
I have studied one term in London last winter, so, my level is good enough to understand and to be understood, don't expect an error-free essay from me though. :)

====3.2) What spoken languages are you fluent in?====
French and English.

====3.3) Are you good at interacting with other players? Our developer community is friendly, but the player community can be a bit rough.====
I'm a really calm person, I always take my time to answer messages. Otherwise, I'm ignoring flamers, I think it's the best to do.

====3.4) Do you give constructive advice?====
I try to.

====3.5) Do you receive advice well?====
Well, I enjoy receiving advices and learning, otherwise I wouldn't be here. :)

====3.6) Are you good at sorting useful criticisms from useless ones?====
I think most criticisms are useful, I'm used to the Internet though, troll don't ambush me.

====3.7) How autonomous are you when developing ? Would you rather discuss intensively changes and not start coding until you know what you want to do or would you rather code a proof of concept to "see how it turn out", taking the risk of having it thrown away if it doesn't match what the project want====
It depends of what have to be done, the bigger the work is the more it has to be discussed. However if my proposal is retained, I might be a bit more scared of doing something bad in the beginning, so I might discuss a solution more than usual. :)

===4) Project===
====4.1) Did you select a project from our list? If that is the case, what project did you select? What do you want to especially concentrate on?====
<noinclude>'''Note: this page is a template, the answer to this question is a parameter. Please, refer to a proposal page.'''</noinclude>{{{1|}}}

====4.2) If you have invented your own project, please describe the project and the scope.====
<noinclude>'''Note: this page is a template, the answer to this question is a parameter. Please, refer to a proposal page.'''</noinclude>{{{2|}}}

====4.3) Why did you choose this project?====
<noinclude>'''Note: this page is a template, the answer to this question is a parameter. Please, refer to a proposal page.'''</noinclude>{{{3|}}}

====4.4) Include an estimated timeline for your work on the project. Don't forget to mention special things like "I booked holidays between A and B" and "I got an exam at ABC and won't be doing much then".====
<noinclude>'''Note: this page is a template, the answer to this question is a parameter. Please, refer to a proposal page.'''</noinclude>{{{4|}}}

====4.5) Include as much technical detail about your implementation as you can====
<noinclude>'''Note: this page is a template, the answer to this question is a parameter. Please, refer to a proposal page.'''</noinclude>{{{5|}}}

====4.6) What do you expect to gain from this project?====
<noinclude>'''Note: this page is a template, the answer to this question is a parameter. Please, refer to a proposal page.'''</noinclude>{{{6|}}}

====4.7) What would make you stay in the Wesnoth community after the conclusion of SOC?====
<noinclude>'''Note: this page is a template, the answer to this question is a parameter. Please, refer to a proposal page.'''</noinclude>{{{7|}}}

===5) Practical considerations===
====5.1) Are you familiar with any of the following tools or languages?====
*Subversion
:I've already used it but I'm more used to mercurial, so I'll maybe opt for git instead since it looks like it's already used by some devs.
*C++ (language used for all the normal source code)
:I'm a big fan. I follow the WG21 publications and I often read comp.std.c++ and comp.lang.c++.moderated.
*STL, Boost, Sdl (C++ libraries used by Wesnoth)
:I'm of course used to the stdlib (not to all addition of C++11 though). I'm not familiar with all Boost (I don't have enough brain for this). But I have often used the parts of Boost that's are now (more or less) in the C++11 stdlib and the MPL. I also used a bit Asio, Filesystem and Phoenix (for being the most WTF library), and some other small libraries like Program Option and Range. I never worked on a project using the SDL, I'm not a big GUI user.
*Python (optional, mainly used for tools)
:Not really, no, really basic.
*build environments (eg cmake/scons)
:I've already wrote some CMakeList.txt, but I never worked with nor used scons.
*WML (the wesnoth specific scenario language)
:I wrote a [[User:Ejls/Vim|Vim syntax]] file for it, so I'm already a bit familiar with it. I'm missing practice though.
*Lua (used in combination with WML to create scenarios)
:I'm familiar with it, not as much as C++ but I already used it as a scripting language for an (annoying) IRC bot I wrote. I'm not familiar with its integration in Wesnoth though.

====5.2) Which tools do you normally use for development? Why do you use them?====
Vim and Unix tools, Perl for big stuff. They are the most productive tools for me, I'm used to them. I'm coding with a laptop under OpenBSD (with gcc 4.2). I also compile Wesnoth on a Debian server (with gcc 4.6), but the X over ssh is a bit slow sometimes. Finally, I temporally have a laptop with FreeBSD 9.0.

====5.3) What programming languages are you fluent in?====
I'm good in C++, C, Lua, Perl and VimScript. I've a lack of practice in Java, Caml, Scheme, NetLogo, CLIPS and AiML (all of them learnt during my studies). On a different note, I like brainfuck, befunge, whitespace and golfscript.

====5.4) Would you mind talking with your mentor on telephone / internet phone? We would like to have a backup way for communications for the case that somehow emails and IRC do fail. If you are willing to do so, please do list a phone number (including international code) so that we are able to contact you. You should probably *only* add this number in the application for you submit to google since the info in the wiki is available in public. We will *not* make any use of your number unless some case of "there is no way to contact you" does arise!====
If you can't join me by email or on IRC, I'm probably dead but sometimes it's easier to speak than to write so I'll include my phone number in my application.

@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 ====1.6) What country are you from, at what time are you most likely to be able to join IRC?====
-I'm from France, CEST (UTC+2 during summer). I always have an irssi running on a server, but I'm more likely to answer during the afternoon and evening. However before the end of the Spring term (4th of June), I'll be able to connect at these times only the weekend and on Friday, I wont be available before 6p.m. UTC for the rest of the week .
+I'm from France, CEST (UTC+2 during summer). I always have an irssi running on a server, but I'm more likely to answer during the afternoon and evening. However before the end of the Spring term (4th of June), I'll be able to connect at these times only the weekend and on Friday, I wont be available before 6p.m. UTC for the rest of the week.
 ====1.7) Do you have other commitments for the summer period ? Do you plan to take any vacations ? If yes, when.====

@@ Line 76: / Line 76: @@
 *A minimap bug: [https://gna.org/bugs/?17676 Bug #17676].
 I have also written longer patches:
-*'''(AI)''' [https://gna.org/patch/?3185 Patch #3185] <tt>power_projection</tt> improvement, it now takes in account future ToD and time areas, I also cleaned the code a bit (task from the [[EasyCoding]] page.)
+*'''(AI)''' [https://gna.org/patch/?3185 Patch #3185] <code>power_projection</code> improvement, it now takes in account future ToD and time areas, I also cleaned the code a bit (task from the [[EasyCoding]] page.)
 *'''(WB)''' [https://gna.org/patch/?3201 Patch #3201] Make leader unable to move when invalidating a planned recall (fixes [https://gna.org/bugs/?19581 Bug #19581] that I found reading the whiteboard code.)
 I have gained commit access the 02/04/2012.

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-| style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 10px 5px 10px"|<h1>Questionnaire</h1><hr />
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 | style="text-align: center; padding:0px 10px 10px 10px;"|[[#1) Basics|Basics]] - [[#2) Experience|Experience]] - [[#3) Communication skills|Communication skills]] - [[#4) Project|Project]] - [[#5) Practical considerations|Practical considerations]]
@@ Line 23: / Line 27: @@
 ====1.6) What country are you from, at what time are you most likely to be able to join IRC?====
-I'm from France, CE(S)T (UTC+1, +2 during summer). I always have an irssi running on a server, but I'm more likely to answer during the afternoon and evening. However before the end of the Spring term (4th of June), I'll be able to connect at these times only the weekend and on Friday, I wont be available before 6p.m. UTC for the rest of the week .
+I'm from France, CEST (UTC+2 during summer). I always have an irssi running on a server, but I'm more likely to answer during the afternoon and evening. However before the end of the Spring term (4th of June), I'll be able to connect at these times only the weekend and on Friday, I wont be available before 6p.m. UTC for the rest of the week .
 ====1.7) Do you have other commitments for the summer period ? Do you plan to take any vacations ? If yes, when.====
@@ Line 122: / Line 126: @@
 ====5.1) Are you familiar with any of the following tools or languages?====
 *Subversion
-:I've already used it but I'm more used to mercurial, so I'll maybe opt for git instead since it looks like it's already used by some devs.
+:I've already used it, but I've opted for git instead.
 *C++ (language used for all the normal source code)
 :I'm a big fan. I follow the WG21 publications and I often read comp.std.c++ and comp.lang.c++.moderated.