Interested in the Google Summer of Code

Wed Mar 19 17:41:13 EDT 2008

And, as additional advice, always check the wiki:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Summer_of_code
and the talk page
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:Summer_of_Code

Have a great day!

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 8:09 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at tomeuvizoso.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>  if you are interested in hacking Sugar, please check the roadmap in
>  the mail below and find something you would have fun working on:
>
>  http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/sugar/2008-March/004546.html
>
>  I would recommend people interested in participating in the google
>  summer code to send an email to the sugar mailing list presenting
>  themselves and, most importantly, stating the mini-projects they would
>  like to work on.
>
>  Chances are high that, if the area to work on is in the roadmap, one
>  core developer will offer his mentorship. Unfortunately, in this
>  precise moment developer's time is very scarce and there's not much
>  time for medium-term goals.
>
>  But of course, everybody is free to work on whatever they want and I
>  personally will try to answer as many questions as possible.
>
>  Tomeu
>
>  2008/3/19 Blaine Booher <frikker at gmail.com>:
>
>
> > I just signed up to the developer's list a few days ago (After seeing an XO
>  > live for the first time at SigCSE 2008 in Portland) and would love to work
>  > on the OLPC as a Google Code project.  I look forward to seeing more
>  > information on this.
>  >
>  > In the mean time I'm going to continue figuring out how to get Sugar up and
>  > running and get my feet wet with the development platform.
>  >
>  > Thanks!
>  > Blaine
>  >
>  > 2008/3/18 Bobby Powers <bobbypowers at gmail.com>:
>  >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > > Hi, I'm a master's student at the University of Bergen and I'm interested
>  > in bringing System Dynamics to the XO.  Before I start, if there is a better
>  > mailing list for this just let me know (I briefly looked through the other
>  > ones liked from the Wiki, and this seemed the most appropriate).
>  > >
>  > >
>  > > System Dynamics (SD) [1][2] aims to help people understand the world by
>  > explicitly modeling how pieces of it work and then performing experiments in
>  > these models.  It is used around the world, frequently in majority world
>  > countries, in development planning [3], for example.  More formally, its a
>  > methodology for examining and describing the behavior of complex systems
>  > with an emphasis on the effects that feedback loops and time delays have.
>  > At a basic level you have to specify the mathematical equations for the
>  > different parts of your system.   The same problems can be solved by writing
>  > code in a programming language (I had a course taught in Fortran a year
>  > ago...), but usually in SD the modeling is done using a visual editor where
>  > you can show causal relationships, stocks and flows graphically.  I
>  > personally think the biggest short-fallings of the discipline are the
>  > barriers to entry: the current software is far from intuitive and all the
>  > major commercial offerings (there are no FLOSS products) [4][5][6] are very
>  > expensive (educational licenses alone are frequently > $500 USD).
>  > >
>  > >
>  > > Will Wright studied SD and used ideas from it when designing SimCity [7].
>  > So I have several things I would like to work on:  first is a core simulator
>  > that can transform equations into code (I'm currently working on this for my
>  > master's thesis, but don't have and funding. eesh): I'm using the JIT
>  > library from the LLVM project to be able to do this.  Second I want to
>  > create a Sugar modeling interface that makes it easy and fun to create
>  > models and explore their results (collaboratively, I hope!), and third I
>  > want to hook this into Metropolis.  I think it would just be so cool if you
>  > could click an icon in Metropolis and have the visual model that controls
>  > the Metropolis world pop up (in the aforementioned editor) and be able not
>  > only to fiddle with parameters, but change the structure!  If all of this
>  > goes smoothly and there is more time, I would love to add the ability for
>  > models to interact with and manipulate geospatial data.
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > > I guess I am looking for people's reaction, is this something people like?
>  > I'm certainly willing to adapt myself to the collective needs and I wanted
>  > to get a discussion started before the application deadline.  Oh I guess a
>  > little more background on me:  I attended RPI in NY, USA for 2 years
>  > studying computer engineering, but transferred because I wanted to do
>  > something more applied.  I studied environmental studies (at SUNY ESF) for a
>  > couple years, and got back into coding through classes on ecological
>  > modeling and GIS.  I've been pretty heavily coding models, algorithms and
>  > interfaces for the past 2 years, mainly in C#, ObjC and some Fortran, but
>  > the past 3 months I've been using C++ for 8 hours a day and Python here and
>  > there.  I've got a Mac with Linux (both FC8 and openSUSE10.3) and Windows,
>  > and I've just started over the past few weeks to pick up GTK, although I've
>  > used Cairo in a project for a couple months.  I've only dabbled with the XO,
>  > but am really looking forward to developing bundles for it.
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > > I'm eager to hear what you think!
>  > > yours,
>  > > Bobby Powers
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > > [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics
>  > > [2] http://www.systemdynamics.org/
>  > > [3] http://www.millenniuminstitute.net/
>  > > [4] http://www.vensim.com/
>  > > [5] http://www.powersim.com/
>  > > [6] http://www.iseesystems.com/
>  > > [7] http://www.futuresalon.org/2004/11/will_wright_kic.html
>  > >
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>  > >
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>  >
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