User:Gray

This page is related to Summer of Code 2013

See the list of Summer of Code 2013 Ideas

This is a Summer of Code 2013 student page

IRC

GrayS

Questionnaire

1) Basics

1.1) Write a small introduction to yourself.

1.2) State your preferred email address.

gstanton@sas.upenn.edu

or gray5656@gmail.com

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

1.4) Why do you want to participate in summer of code?

1.5) What are you studying, subject, level and school?

I'm currently a freshman (1st year) at the University of Pennsylvania. My intended majors are :Computer Science and Economics, BA program.

1.6) What country are you from, at what time are you most likely to be able to join IRC?

I'm from the US, and I'm on the east coast, so typically I would be able to be on IRC from 10am(EST) to 6pm.

1.7) Do you have other commitments for the summer period ? Do you plan to take any vacations ? If yes, when.

I have no other major commitments that would prevent me from working on Wesnoth.

2) Experience

2.1) What programs/software have you worked on before?

I've worked on a number of smaller projects, including a bomberman clone, a maze-generator and :solver, an RPG set in Maine, a Paint-clone in OCaml, and a orbital-motion simulator.

2.2) Have you developed software in a team environment before? (As opposed to hacking on something on your own)

Yes! I have worked on multiple projects in small groups.

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?

I have not previously applied for any GSOC projects.

2.4) Are you already involved with any open source development projects? If yes, please describe the project and the scope of your involvement.

Not currently involved in the open source process, but very much interested in becoming so!

2.5) Gaming experience - Are you a gamer?

Yes, I am an avid gamer.

2.5.1) What type of gamer are you?

    I play all sorts of games, both video and board.

2.5.2) What type of games?

My tastes are fairly eclectic, but my particular fancy is strategy games. I'm a big fan of Supreme :Commander, Age of Wonders, Civilization, Warlock MoTA, Men of War, Europa Universalis, King's Bounty, :Crusader Kings, and others. I also enjoy more indie games, such as Hotline Miami, Thomas Was Alone, :To The Moon, Mark of the Ninja, FTL, Anodyne, The Binding of Isaac, Super Hexagon, and quite a few :more that I won't list.

2.5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?

For strategy games, one should also try to play against someone who is slightly better than you. :Otherwise, you won't improve. However, they should also be willing to tell you what you did wrong.

2.5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?

Ultimately, the goal of a game is to produce the best experience. On the pure story end, you have :things like interactive fiction, and on the pure gameplay end you have roguelikes and Minecraft. :Neither is strictly preferable the other, and most games fall somewhere in the middle.

2.5.5) Have you played Wesnoth? If so, tell us roughly for how long and whether you lean towards single player or multiplayer.

I have indeed played Wesnoth before, I've actually been playing it on and off for the last year or :so. I've predominantly played single-player games.

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 repository (during the evaluation period or earlier) please state so.

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.

English is my first language.

3.2) What spoken languages are you fluent in?

English, Italian, and some Chinese.

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 excellent at communicating with players! I've been active on a fair few forums in my time, and :I'm not easily intimidated. I'm also infallibly polite!

3.4) Do you give constructive advice?

I always attempt to. If I have some advice to offer, I always try to frame it in a helpful and :engaging way.

3.5) Do you receive advice well?

Also yes! I love getting constructive criticism, for it's the best way to improve.

3.6) Are you good at sorting useful criticisms from useless ones?

Definitely. Useless criticism typically reveals itself quickly.

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

I usually prefer to discuss things both beforehand and while coding, to better get a sense of the :direction the project should go. Specifications are important! However, I don't mind working :autonomously at all, and am quite capable of working independently.

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?

4.2) If you have invented your own project, please describe the project and the scope.

4.3) Why did you choose this project?

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".

4.5) Include as much technical detail about your implementation as you can

4.6) What do you expect to gain from this project?

4.7) What would make you stay in the Wesnoth community after the conclusion of SOC?

5) Practical considerations

5.1) Are you familiar with any of the following tools or languages?

   Sub­­version (used for all commits):
   I am indeed familiar with both Subversion and GIT.
   
   C++ (language used for all the normal source code)
   I'm familiar with C++, but I'm always open to learning more about the language.
   
   STL, Boost, Sdl (C++ libraries used by Wesnoth)
   I'm certainly familiar with STL, but I have not previously used Boost or Sdl
   
   Python (optional, mainly used for tools)
   Very familiar with Python.
   
   Build Environments (eg cmake/scons)
   I've used scons before, but not cmake.
   
   WML (the wesnoth specific scenario language)
   Not familiar, alas!
   
   Lua (used in combination with WML to create scenarios)
   I have used Lua before for minor scripting things, but it has been a while.
   

5.2) Which tools do you normally use for development? Why do you use them?

For larger projects, I usually use Eclipse to manage things. For smaller tasks, I'll just use nano :and g++.

5.3) What programming languages are you fluent in?

C++, Java, Python, OCaml, Haskell

5.4) Would you mind talking with your mentor on telephone / internet phone?

I certainly wouldn't mind!