SoC2011 Student Page SteveGSoC

Description

SteveGSoC - Project description

TODO: Write a small (1-4 sentences) description of your proposal here.

IRC

SteveGSoC

WORK IN PROGRESS

1) Basics

1.1) Write a small introduction to yourself.

    Hello, my name is Stephen Melvin and I am excited to offer a proposal for Google's Summer of Code
    2011. *MORE NEEDED*
    

1.2) State your preferred email address.

    jinksys@gmail.com

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

    SteveGSoC - This is my nick in both the forums and IRC

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

    I've been writing code for years, however except for submitting the occasional bug fix 
    or the apps I've submitted to the Apple AppStore, my coding has been "by me, for me".  Without
    the experience of working with a group of skilled and proficient developers, I fear that 
    my own programming will plateau. To me, this is more than a bullet-point in a CV, it is a way
    to work with a mature project that can offer me challenges I wouldn't have in my own work.

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

    I am majoring in Computer Science at the University of Missouri - St Louis (umsl.edu).
    Currently, I have roughly three semesters left in my degree (two full semesters and one
    summer semester to pick up a couple math courses).  

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

    I live in the state of Missouri in the United States.  I am usually up from 9AM CDT to 1AM CDT.
 

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

    I am free this summer to devote 100% of my time to my project.

2) Experience

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

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

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?

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

2.5) Gaming experience - Are you a gamer?

2.5.1) What type of gamer are you?

2.5.2) What type of games?

2.5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?

2.5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?

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

We do not plan to favor Wesnoth players as such, but some particular projects require a good feeling for the game which is hard to get without having played intensively.

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.

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 am fluent in English and tolerant of those who are not.

3.2) What spoken languages are you fluent in?

    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.

3.4) Do you give constructive advice?

3.5) Do you receive advice well?

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

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

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)
   * C++ (language used for all the normal source code)
   * STL, Boost, Sdl (C++ libraries used by Wesnoth)
   * Python (optional, mainly used for tools)
   * build environments (eg cmake/scons)
   * WML (the wesnoth specific scenario language)
   * Lua (used in combination with WML to create scenarios) 

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

5.3) What programming languages are you fluent in?

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!