User:Ejls/GSoC 2012/Questionnaire

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.

Questionnaire

Basics - Experience - Communication skills - Project - 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 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 (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, 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.

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 [NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies] (a genetical algorithm evolving neural networks), it didn't beat the minimax though :(. Total: 5000 SLOC [Source Lines Of Code].

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 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 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: Bug #17584 and Bug #17585.
A minimap bug: Bug #17676.

I have also written longer patches:

(AI) Patch #3185 power_projection improvement, it now takes in account future ToD and time areas, I also cleaned the code a bit (task from the EasyCoding page.)
(WB) Patch #3201 Make leader unable to move when invalidating a planned recall (fixes Bug #19581 that I found reading the whiteboard code.)

I have gained commit access the 02/04/2012.

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. :)