SummerOfCodeProposal Theodore

This page is related to Summer of Code 2010

See the list of Summer of Code 2010 Ideas

This is a Summer of Code 2010 student page

Questionnaire

1.1) Write a small introduction to yourself.

My name is Théodore Chabardès and I am 19 years old. I am living at Paris in France. I began coding when I was sixteen years old with c89 and I always like to play multiplayer games.

1.2) State your preferred email address.

theodore@chabardes.net

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

IRC and Wesnoth forums: Theodore

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

It's a great opportunity to learn how to deal with big projects and network. As a daily user of opensource programs I am looking for a chance to contribute to the opensource world.

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

I am pursuing a Master degree in Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering, currently in second year out of five. My school is ESIEE.

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

I am from France. I would be able to join the IRC channel between 18:00 to 24:00 in school period and between 10:00 to 24:00 in vacation.

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 commitments for the summer period. I may have a two weeks vacation but I could stay available if necessary.

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

• My first project that I have worked on was fully created by me in order to gain some experience in c89 programming. It was a tower defense like implemented using SDL library. It was a really basic project which I finished in two months. Its taught me how to implement simple finite-state machine and 2D system and a basic IA (with a A* algorithm). I made three version of it, each one better coded than the one before. The last version was quite clean.
• I am currently working on a professional like game engine project disasteroïde (an public account will soon be released but as for the english traduction ... it is for the moment not considered). It's an open source project made by friends of mine a few years ago. I helped compilate the whole project on MacOS and to build the network system which works with boost:asia. This project made me familiar with tools like automake, configure, makefile, autotools, boost and with networking.
• I worked on a Java Application for a first-year school project. It was just a basic "point and click" game developped with four other student in order to learn object-based programmation and Java.
• I build an gateways using iptables for an computer association from ESIEE. I am now familiar with networking thanks to this.
• There was also a lot of algorithmic problems I implemented.

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

Yes, in two projects as mentionned before: the disasteroïde project (thirteen persons active and twenty four persons who participated) and the java application (four persons).

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.

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?

I play a little on my free time.

2.5.1) What type of gamer are you?

I prefer multiplayer games. I play to have fun with friends.

2.5.2) What type of games?

Strategy, shooter and a little bit of RPG.

2.5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?

I prefer to play against real player.

2.5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?

In 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.

I have played Wesnoth one year ago. I played it 1 or 2 months. I played 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.

No contribuation yet.

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 speak quite fluently in English but I may do some mistakes from time to time.

3.2) What spoken languages are you fluent in?

French, 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 won't have any problems to speak about what I do with the developer community or the player community.

3.4) Do you give constructive advice?

yes. On programming problems I am inclined to get some informations and test some code before giving advice. I think my advice are therefore constructive.

3.5) Do you receive advice well?

yes. It's essential in order to learn fast.

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

yes.

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 think it is important to fit in the project. In a well build project there always is a guideline for coding. I prefer to put my ideas on paper, see the dependances and how it fits before implementing. At first I speak with other members of my concept.

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?

I select a project from your list : Rewrite wesnoth network stack using boost::asio . Apparently, it is quite a big project. So I hope to finish a basic operationnel system easy to upgrade and to manipulate. But I think this can be done in the given time.

4.3) Why did you choose this project?

I choose this project because I am already familiar with boost:asia and this will help me to improve my other project based on boost:asia.

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".

I think it may take me one or two months to be done properly. I will be alvailable between 21th June to 5th August.

It will take me less than a week to have a basic working client-server interface, one or two weeks to analyze how was done the system with SDL network, the rest will mainly be for optimization and implementation of the requested features as proxy support, configurable timeout value for connections, ability for wesnoth client to multiplex connections to wesnoth server, ability to use wesnoth network client with a different c++ backend(the last one must be thinking right at the beginning).

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

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

I am expecting to gain more experience about team project, network and constraints of time.

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

I am currently looking for active project to invest in. If this experience give me the productivity I need and a pleasant community, it would be a pleasure to stay in the Wesnoth community.

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

   * Subversion (used for all commits)

I have used subversion a lot lately.

   * C++ (language used for all the normal source code)

It is my second favorite language after C.

   * STL, Boost, Sdl (C++ libraries used by Wesnoth)

I used all of them in different projects.

   * Python (optional, mainly used for tools)

I am not familiar

   * build environments (eg cmake/autotools/scons)

I am familiar and used them a lot lately

   * WML (the wesnoth specific scenario language)

I am not familiar

   * Lua (used in combination with WML to create scenarios) 

I am not familiar

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

I use VIM : it is a powerful text editor. Sometime I use a simple text Editor as Kedit. I use make or gcc for compilation.

5.3) What programming languages are you fluent in?

I am fluent in C, C++, Java. I am less fluent in objectiv-c.

5.5) 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!

I have no problem talking with my mentor on telephone / internet phone. My phone number will be added in my application to Google.