SoC 2014 Spoffy Finishing and Enhancing the UMCD
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Description
Spoffy - UMCD Extension Proposal
To put this briefly until I get time to do a more thorough description:
I intend to continue working on the User Made Content Daemon, a project started by Trademark last year.
More to come as I fill this out.
IRC
spoffy
Questionnaire
1) Basics
1.01) Preamble
I may tend to rant on a little bit in this. I hope it gives a better, more honest taste of who I am. If not, then let me know and I can make an abridged version!
1.1) Write a small introduction to yourself.
Heyho! I'm Callum, a 1st year Software Engineering student in Southern England! (Well aware this is a public wiki. This will be updated in the actual application!). I'm an avid hacker and open source supporter, going to FOSDEM in 2014 and trying to use as much free software as possible! I also love Hackathons, having gone to 3 between February and March and organising another for late march! All of the code produced in these is available as free software on my Github page (which I encourage people to look at. Especially the Musical Packets hack, it's awesome IMO!).
1.2) State your preferred email address.
spoffeh@gmail.com
1.3) If you have chosen a nick for IRC and Wesnoth forums, what is it?
Spoffy - This will always be my nickname where I can get it! (See my email for what happens when I can't :( )
1.4) Why do you want to participate in summer of code?
I want to hack on more open source projects. While I do enjoy making my own from scratch, it'd be nice to actually chip in and get involved with larger projects. Sadly, the entry barrier to some of these can be quite high, between mailing lists, IRC, coding styles, learning the source, etc, and I rarely seem to have time between the other things I'm hacking to justify it! For me, Google Summer of Code really does help make that initial apparent investment seem more than worthwhile! The money also means I can spend my summer hacking awesome open source things, rather than working at a shop or taking an Internship at somewhere boring and/or propietary. That wouldn't be nearly as cool!
1.5) What are you studying, subject, level and school?
Software Engineer MEng, 1st year. I'll update the school on the actual application. Again, I'm well aware of the internet's scope.
1.6) What country are you from, at what time are you most likely to be able to join IRC?
England! I try to be on IRC whenever possible, but naturally I sleep. I aim for at least 7pm - 11pm GMT each day, and I'm usually on and off at various points between 10am and 12am. Soon (Or perhaps already, if I haven't changed this by the time its submitted) I plan on just rigging one up to run permanently on a remote server to log ALL the messages. :)
1.7) Do you have other commitments for the summer period ? Do you plan to take any vacations ? If yes, when.
I have a planned vacation abroad for two weeks around June time, however I plan on taking my laptop and a Pi, with the full intention of continuing coding regardless.
2) Experience
2.1) What programs/software have you worked on before?
I spent 2 years or so prior to University working on a game called Space Station 13 on the BYOND platform. I'm the head programmer for one of the game communities there, although I'm trying to phase out my involvement somewhat due to other commitments (such as SoC and Uni :) ).
Since coming to University, I've played with a variety of projects.. if played is the right word. Since Java is the main language used, I've obviously done a lot of work on Courseworks and extra projects in it, though these are minor things, often with quickly hacked code due to one-week deadlines. Unfortunately, this has also meant University has taken up much of my time, and due to the nature of the projects, left me with little to show for it! (I'll note some exceptions later).
I've also been to a number of hackathons and hacked together projects there, including Musical Packets and a few others (with Musical Packets being one I'm working on refining and looking to continue on and off). These are often made up of very quick prototype code, but are almost always working systems.
2.2) Have you developed software in a team environment before? (As opposed to hacking on something on your own)
As mentioned above, I've been a part of/head of the SS13 programming team for a good two or three years, which has varied between 2 and 5 active members in that time. I've also had group projects at University, and a number of hackathons, all of which have involved teams of two or more!
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?
Sadly no, this is my first year! Though it should be an exciting one!
2.4) Are you already involved with any open source development projects? If yes, please describe the project and the scope of your involvement.
As above, I'm involved with Musical Packets (ish, it's only done by 3 people. Does that count as involved?), and SS13, with the latter being phased out. I usually only contribute to these when I have free time, with other things such as Uni taking priority.
2.5) Gaming experience - Are you a gamer?
Very much so! I have a rather large game collection, though I'm struggling to find time to play them between all the hacking!
2.5.1) What type of gamer are you?
I'm tempted to say casual? I have lots of games, but I don't often play them at the moment. Except Tetris. That's always strangely addicting. Can one be a casual hardcore tetris player?
2.5.2) What type of games?
TETRI... oh, other games? Various, I enjoy almost every variety of game. Dating sims are a notable exception... Anyway. Puzzle games are always awesome because of how intellectually challenging they are. I've spent long stints playing Tetris and Puzzle Pirates. I also once spent 12 hours or so optimising a SpaceChem puzzle. I've basically refused to play since, given I know I'll get sucked in for another puzzle. I quite enjoy Turn based strategy as well, although I find many games fail to get it quite right, often requiring super in-depth knowledge of vast tech trees (Space Empires for example.). Wesnoth is one exception to that, more on that later I suspect!
I do also enjoy sandbox games. Anything that lets you stretch yourselve creatively while also posing a challenge. I find Minecraft often fails in the latter, although Space Engineers and other ship-building or colony-building games like Hazeron are often entertaining.
Artemis Bridge Sim is also a game that I rarely get to play, but stands out as being decidedly awesome. How would this even by categorised.
Also, space games. Always.
2.5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?
I'm guessing AI or Human? Depends on the game. Definitely human in an FPS. Puzzle games, I like to challenge myself, or another human player. AIs tend to feel too strong or too weak. In terms of the type of person I like to play with, those who are competitive, but also equally in it just for fun!
2.5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?
Depends. Usually gameplay, as that also tends to add replayability to a game. Stories have though, when they're good, kept me hooked for an entire game session though. Finding the story/gameplay balance is always difficult though.
2.5.5) Have you played Wesnoth? If so, tell us roughly for how long and whether you lean towards single player or multiplayer.
Briefly, I remember playing it a month or so back. I remember playing a few missions and the tutorials and contemplating how balanced and strategy focused the game felt. It's admirable how well it does in that regard. When I find some free time when I'm not hacking, it's definitely on my play again list.
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.
Not as of yet, though I'm attempting to contribute and refine the NEEV library that is intended to replace ASIO in the UMCD. This seems like a more productive use of time, as much as anything.
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.
Perfectly fluent? I'm a native English speaker, and I love creative writing! Hopefully this questionnaire as well as IRC interactions give a good feel for this.
3.2) What spoken languages are you fluent in?
English... that's about it. I know a little Spanish and French, technically? Oh, I also speak Python.
3.3) Are you good at interacting with other players? Our developer community is friendly, but the player community can be a bit rough.
My first role on SS13 was an administrator. It was that path that actually led me to coding. We've also had a number of DOS attacks from players that have been... disagreeable, as well. I'm used to dealing politely with that sort of person. Occasionally, there's a genuine issue behind what they're saying as well, so it's important to get that out.
3.4) Do you give constructive advice?
I do my best to! Though sometimes, I also feel the best advice is to not give much advice. People don't learn if you give them everything, though equally, they sometimes need advice to help them learn. I do my best, but it's a fine balance.
3.5) Do you receive advice well?
Again, I do my best! I like to think I do, and I always welcome ways to improve, though occasionally this does lead to (fun) debates.
3.6) Are you good at sorting useful criticisms from useless ones?
I'd like to think so, at any rate. I'm used to having non-coders try to criticise code or ways of working (For example, saying 'It's easy, it shouldn't take so long!' etc). I'm not sure how to elaborate more here, so onwards!
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 prefer to dicuss changes as much as possible, though naturally it depends on the scale. If it's something I feel I can sort out myself and doesn't concern people much at all, I'm perfectly happy to go away and come back with a proof of concept or
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?
I selected the User Made Content Daemon! I want to focus on... all of it? I'm not sure. It's an interesting project that looks fun, but more under that for 'Why'
4.2) If you have invented your own project, please describe the project and the scope.
[Left Empty]
4.3) Why did you choose this project?
Two major reasons.
One: It's a standalone project. It's not tied into Wesnoth itself, which means a much smaller code base to learn and more autonomy when contributing, as well as control/flexibility with where it goes. This really, really appeals to me.
Two: Networking. This is one of my primary interests in terms of Software, as well as overall software architecture (Modular, flexible designs, etc). I saw the opportunity to engage is a project that is significantly about network communication I jumped at it. It was for a game too! I love developing for games! As much because of the community as anything, I always find game communities to be passionate and interesting. The project here is certainly cool enough I'm only making a single application to focus on it!
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".
Naturally. Wait, hey, this isn't a question! It'll be below, along with other project details.
4.5) Include as much technical detail about your implementation as you can
This will also be below. It's naturally deserving of its own section!
4.6) What do you expect to gain from this project?
A fully working UMCD. Experience. An epic time. Maybe not in that order. Maybe 'A fully working UMCD' seems like a weird thing to put, but I always gain satisfaction from a cool, working hack. The UMCD fits that category.
4.7) What would make you stay in the Wesnoth community after the conclusion of SOC?
Firstly, and this is important to me, that lack of a 'need' to contribute. I like to be able to choose when and where I do, and I think Wesnoth offers that.
Secondly, if I don't finish the UMCD. Maybe finish is the wrong word, but I hate incomplete things. I like to have things functioning, and functioning well.
Thirdly, the people. If I get to know awesome people here, naturally I'll want to stick around!
5) Practical considerations
5.1) Are you familiar with any of the following tools or languages?
- Git (used for all commits)
- Git is amazing. Yeah, I used it all the time, and have all my University work under Git version control.
I also use it on all my open source hacks.
- C++ (language used for all the normal source code)
- I've never done a large project with C++, but I know the language and I intend of adding example code and practicing between now and summer of code.
- STL, Boost, Sdl (C++ libraries used by Wesnoth)
- I'm fairly familiar with the STL, certainly with abstract data structures in general. I know a bit about Boost Asio (Though this is a focus of mine with respect to working with C++ at the moment). I'm not familiar with Sdl at all.
- Python (optional, mainly used for tools)
- I'm fluent in Python, it's my main Hackathon language. And such a nice language to write in too.
- build environments (eg cmake/scons)
- I know a bit about cmake, enough to make basic make files. This is again something I'm actively working on improving at the moment. Scons I know little to nothing of.
- WML (the wesnoth specific scenario language)
- I know nothing of WML really, except that from the examples I've seen it looks like XML with square brackets, or at least very similar.
- Lua (used in combination with WML to create scenarios)
- Fluent in Lua, at least I was last time I checked. Haven't written in it in a while, but it was also the first language I ever learnt!
5.2) Which tools do you normally use for development? Why do you use them?
Git firstly. Its flexibility with respect to branching and checking out different commits, as well as its ability to quickly pull and push to other repositories make it awesome. Also the fact it has a modular client!
Vim is my go-to text editor for smaller projects, with a number of plugins for Syntax checking, etc. I can't do without Vim keybindings, they make navigating the code so much easier and faster, as you never need to touch a mouse!
Usually however, for larger projects, I like an IDE for code completion and real-time error checking. When I start a new project, there's usually a small internal debate on using an IDE vs Vim. I usually settle for an IDE with a vim keybindings plugin. Hence IntelliJ or PyCharm tend to be gotos, as they have an easy to install but powerful vim plugin.
If Linux is a tool, I always use Linux, as command-line linux is incredibly flexible and powerful.. plus free software!
Otherwise, it really does depend on the project.
5.3) What programming languages are you fluent in?
I'm fluent in Python, Java and Lua. Python and Lua tend to be my gotos for most projects. Also DreamMaker, but it's BYOND specific.
I'm competant in C++, C, HTML, Javascript and Awk, though I don't use them often.
I have a knowledge of D (Which I love, I just need a project to use it on!), Bash and probably a couple of others I've forgotten.
5.4) Would you mind talking with your mentor on telephone / internet phone?
Not at all, I'm perfectly happy talking over phone. IP is preferred though, as I like to have my hands free to type.
4) Project
5) Practical considerations