SummerOfCodeProposal Ryochan7

I want to participate in summer of code because I have wanted the experience of being a part of an open source project for a while. I would be spending most of my summer coding my own projects anyway so it would be better to use my time during the summer to give back to the open source community that I have greatly benefited from.

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

Computer Science, end of 3rd year, Illinois State University

1.6) 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 Wesnoth. If you have gained commit access to our SVN (during the evaluation period or earlier) please state so.

None

Experience

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

I have mostly worked on my own programs that were written in Python as a way to learn the language. My biggest currently supported program is YouTubed-2x; it is a program that downloads videos from various flash sites and transcodes them via ffmpeg into a GP2X-compatible AVI video file. Other programs that I have worked on in some capacity are PSP Video Converter (submitted some patches) and the PlayStation Portable port of Doom (maintained the main branch for a few months, added wad selector, button configuration menu, added overclocking support)

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

No. I have always wanted to experience being a part of a group project.

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 participated in Google Summer of Code.

2.4) Open Source

2.4.1) 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

2.5.1) What type of gamer are you?

I consider myself a casual gamer nowadays because I don't have much time to play games.

2.5.2) What type of games?

I mostly play FPS's and JRPGs.

2.5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?

I prefer to face a human opponent.

2.5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?

I am generally more interested in story than gameplay. My love for the Xenosaga series is a great example of that.

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 used to play the game a lot for over two months about a couple of years ago. I have continued to follow the project and recommend the game to friends but I have not played Wesnoth in a long time.

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 a native speaker.

3.2) Are you good at interacting with other players? Our developer community is friendly, but the player community can be a bit rough.

I am not particularly good at interacting with other players.

3.3) Do you give constructive advice?

Yes

3.4) Do you receive advice well?

Yes. I am always willing to take advice from other people.

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

Yes.

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 would like to concentrate on developing the addon server idea.

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

NA

4.3) Why did you choose this project?

I chose this project because I feel that I have a better general understanding of this project and what can be done; programming AI is over my head and I am not that great at web development.

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?

I expect to gain some experience in working with a team and get dough from Google.

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

As long as I do a good job on my project then I would stay in the Wesnoth community after the conclusion of SOC.

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)
   * Python (optional, mainly used for tools)
   * build environments (eg cmake/autotools/scons)

I am familiar with C++, Python, cmake, and autotools.

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

I usually use Python for development. I use Python because it is a lot easier to write something fairly quickly as opposed to using C++.

5.3) What programming languages are you fluent in?

I am fluent in C++ and Python. I studied C++ in school for 3 year and I studied Python on my own for about 1.5 years. I am also fairly proficient at Java.

5.4) What spoken languages are you fluent in?

English

5.5) At what hours are you awake and when will you be able to be in IRC (please specify in UTC)

I am awake between 2 PM till 5 AM UTC. I can be in IRC between 2 AM - 4 AM UTC.

5.6) 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.

I do not mind getting calls from a mentor.

SummerOfCodeProposal Ryochan7

Contents

Personal Information/Introduction

Questionaire

Basics

Experience

Communication skills

Project

Practical considerations