Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
 
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Hi smalltalkers. I have been asked to be the admin of GSoC 2010. The backup or second admin is Janko Mivšek. As you may know, Squeak has participated in GSoC 2007, 2008 but failed (not accepted) in 2009. We are not sure if we will succeed this year but we will try to do as much as possible.
We think that one of the most important reasons why we failed in 2009 is that Google was looking for bigger communities that Squeak. This is why this year we all go under the ESUG umbrella. We present ESUG as the mentor organization and we cover ALL open-source Smalltalk dialects, not only Squeak. Pharo, Smalltalk/X, GNU Smalltalk, Cuis..they are all invited to participate. Also cross platform projects like Seaside, AidaWeb, Magma, etc are welcome. <forThoseWhoDoesntKnowWhatGSoCIs> It is a Google program that support (money) students to work on different open-source projects. Google doesn't talk or manage directly to the students but trough "Mentoring Organisations". Those organizations have to apply to GSoC. They have to give a lot of information, included a list of ideas/projects. Each project has a description and a mentor. Then the students apply for each project. If the organization gets selected by Google they will tell you how many "slots" they give. Suppose they give 5 but we have 20 projects....then we vote and the most voted projects win. The student has to do the project and the mentor has to help and guide him. The mentor receives 500 USD and the student 4500USD. For more information read: http://code.google.com/soc/ </forThoseWhoDoesntKnowWhatGSoCIs> The most important thing is the deadlines we have. We started late so we are very near to the first deadline which is 12/03/2010 (less than one week). For that deadline we need to submit all the information of the mentor organization (answering several questions) and give the list of ideas/projects and the mentors of that. We have created a webpage (Thanks Janko!!) where we will put all the information. We will make this page public soon (we still need to review a couple of things). But for the moment we would REALLY appreciate if tell us your ideas. To do this, just answer to this email. Then we will collect the information and put in the website. For each idea you need: a short title and a paragraph (for the moment) explaining the idea. After, we need that the people that are willing to be mentors start to apply as mentors...please, consider yourself being mentor. Sometimes it is not that difficult. I mean, don't be shy as sometimes being helpful, being aware of the dates, answering emails, etc is more important than the Smalltalk knoweldege. We can have a lot of ideas, but we need also mentors for that. We even would need a "substitute" for each mentor... Just as an example you can see the ideas of the previous years: 2007: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/5936 2008: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6031 2009: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6120 That's all for the moment. Cheers Mariano |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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4) Build a continuous integration server using Seaside, Iliad or AidaWeb. Build an interface to version control systems (possibly supporting both independent systems such as Monticello or file-based such as svn/CVS/git) that can be used from Smalltalk and integrate it with Smalllint code reports. For a more ambitious project, the server should be able to start a new image, upgrade the package, run SUnit tests there and communicate back the results---the time to upgrade the package should be minimized of course! Are you aware of this two projects ? I don't know other dialects but in Pharo they work: - http://n4.nabble.com/Interim-build-server-td1296834.html#a1296834 - http://n4.nabble.com/ANN-Hudson-continuous-integration-server-support-td1296910.html#a1296910
Yes!!! And make it (optionally at least) not to block the complete VM while a function is being called. Cheers Mariano |
Re: Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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In reply to this post by Mariano Martinez Peck
A little correction. At the beginning I though only open-source
Smalltalk dialects were possible, but now Janko let me know that non
open-source dialects are welcome too. What really has to be open-source
is the project/idea in particular, but the Smalltalk dialect in itself
can be non open-source.
Sorry for the noise. Mariano On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 1:04 PM, Mariano Martinez Peck <[hidden email]> wrote: Hi smalltalkers. I have been asked to be the admin of GSoC 2010. The backup or second admin is Janko Mivšek. As you may know, Squeak has participated in GSoC 2007, 2008 but failed (not accepted) in 2009. We are not sure if we will succeed this year but we will try to do as much as possible. |
Re: [Esug-list] HTTP messaging project (was Google Summer of Code..)
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In reply to this post by Mariano Martinez Peck
On 03/07/2010 10:59 AM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
> This is actually very good idea and because we need to reimplement the > Swazoo HTTP messaging part due to licensing reasons anyway, even more > timely. Don't get me started on this... Are you sure there's no more pressing need for Swazoo? Paolo |
Re: [Seaside] Re: [Esug-list] HTTP messaging project (was Google Summer of Code..)
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On 03/07/2010 11:17 AM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
>> > Don't get me started on this... Are you sure there's no more pressing >> > need for Swazoo? > Certainly, like improving the HTTP Server part according to your > suggestions and actual code. Also unifiying the portability layer (Sport > and Grease) under a common umbrella is a good idea, then we can move > Swazoo on that layer. > > But Julian's idea came just at the right moment and it has a broader > appeal. We can then redesign the HTTP server part in the meantime. I see > many synergies there. Ok, then I agree. :-) But let's set the priorities straight. :-) Paolo |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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In reply to this post by Mariano Martinez Peck
I think this project could be a good idea for GSoC. As I said, I would love if it (optionally at least) could not to block the complete VM while a function is being called. I would also love what you said: parse .h of libraries and automatically create the wrapper for Smalltalk. At least create the invocations to the functions, and map the structures to objects... We need to write a title, a little description and if possible titles like "technical details", "benefits to the students" and "benefits to the community". If you are interested please send it to me and I add it to the list. We also need a mentor (and a student, of course)...anyone is willing to do it ? Cheers Mariano |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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I'm all for it, and hope that John or Eliot can mentor. Datapoints I'll add:
There is some support for parsing C headers in the Newspeak system. Aliens have been ported to Strongtalk as well as Squeak.
Finally - what licensing would apply if GNU Smalltalk were used? GPL is a big problem. Even LGPL elicits an immune response in a lot of commercial contexts. Is there a GSoC policy on this?
On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Mariano Martinez Peck <[hidden email]> wrote:
-- Cheers, Gilad |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 12:24 AM, Gilad Bracha <[hidden email]> wrote: I'm all for it, and hope that John or Eliot can mentor. Datapoints I'll add:
Yes, as you can read here: http://socghop.appspot.com/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2010/faqs#licenses it says:
That depends on your mentoring organization. All code created by student participants must be released under an Open Source Initiative approved license. It's also extremely likely that your mentoring organization will have a preferred license(s) and that you will need to release your code under the license(s) chosen by that organization. And as you can read in the link, LGPL seems to be accepted...so, from the GSoC point of view there is no problem with the license. Cheers Mariano
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Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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In reply to this post by Mariano Martinez Peck
Mariano et al,
On 3/7/10 15:09 , Mariano Martinez Peck wrote: > > > 5) Work on a cross-dialect foreign function call interface and > implement it in at least two dialects. Candidates include Alien > and GNU Smalltalk's CObject (using existing implementation has the > advantage of having to implement in only _one_ other dialect!). > Bonus points for implementing a C parser that would be able to > construct bindings. GNU Smalltalk already contains a C > preprocessor implementation. > > parsing header files and such is not possible in general terms (linker macros, private compiler macros), and sometimes it is counterproductive because it violates C encapsulation (e.g.: Single Unix Specification does not specify layout or all the members of structs). It may work sometimes, or even most of the time, but please keep in mind using a C compiler for small C stubs (primitives of some sort) may be significantly better in some cases. Also, if you write a C stub as a primitive, then you can assume the structure of the receiver and that of the arguments, and in turn this can make marshaling easier... Andres. |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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In reply to this post by Mariano Martinez Peck
Mariano
Well I do not know anybody writing code under LGPL in Smalltalk. So this is an issue. I think that having a license mess will not help. So we do not care about the fact that the project use a apporved license, we care that people can/will use it afterwards. So LGPL is not a good idea. Stef On Mar 8, 2010, at 12:29 AM, Mariano Martinez Peck wrote: > > > On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 12:24 AM, Gilad Bracha <[hidden email]> wrote: > I'm all for it, and hope that John or Eliot can mentor. Datapoints I'll add: > > There is some support for parsing C headers in the Newspeak system. > Aliens have been ported to Strongtalk as well as Squeak. > > > Finally - what licensing would apply if GNU Smalltalk were used? GPL is a big problem. Even LGPL elicits an immune response in a lot of commercial contexts. Is there a GSoC policy on this? > > > > Yes, as you can read here: > > http://socghop.appspot.com/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2010/faqs#licenses > > it says: > > • What licenses do I have choose from? > That depends on your mentoring organization. All code created by student participants must be released under an Open Source Initiative approved license. It's also extremely likely that your mentoring organization will have a preferred license(s) and that you will need to release your code under the license(s) chosen by that organization. > > > And as you can read in the link, LGPL seems to be accepted...so, from the GSoC point of view there is no problem with the license. > > Cheers > > Mariano > > On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Mariano Martinez Peck <[hidden email]> wrote: > > > 5) Work on a cross-dialect foreign function call interface and implement it in at least two dialects. Candidates include Alien and GNU Smalltalk's CObject (using existing implementation has the advantage of having to implement in only _one_ other dialect!). Bonus points for implementing a C parser that would be able to construct bindings. GNU Smalltalk already contains a C preprocessor implementation. > > > I think this project could be a good idea for GSoC. As I said, I would love if it (optionally at least) could not to block the complete VM while a function is being called. > > I would also love what you said: parse .h of libraries and automatically create the wrapper for Smalltalk. At least create the invocations to the functions, and map the structures to objects... > > We need to write a title, a little description and if possible titles like "technical details", "benefits to the students" and "benefits to the community". > > If you are interested please send it to me and I add it to the list. > > We also need a mentor (and a student, of course)...anyone is willing to do it ? > > Cheers > > Mariano > > > > -- > Cheers, Gilad > |
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In reply to this post by Gilad Bracha-2
Hi all,
> > > There is some support for parsing C headers in the Newspeak system. > Aliens have been ported to Strongtalk as well as Squeak. > Couple of year ago, I've created Cface, a semi-automatic C-binding generator that parses C headers. I was written in a dialect agnostic way. It uses gcc-xml for parsing C headers and set of XSLT stylesheets to create lisp-like representation of a C header file. This lisp-like file is then read by Smalltalk parser and AST is created. Such AST is then processed by visitors. Cface was never finished (is there any piece of code that was ever finished? :-) The code is at http://smalltalk.felk.cvut.cz/svn/cvut/fel/cface/ Feel free to (re)use it. Written in Smalltalk/X. Cheers, Jan |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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In reply to this post by Gilad Bracha-2
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 00:24, Gilad Bracha <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I'm all for it, and hope that John or Eliot can mentor. Datapoints I'll add: > There is some support for parsing C headers in the Newspeak system. > Aliens have been ported to Strongtalk as well as Squeak. > Finally - what licensing would apply if GNU Smalltalk were used? GPL is a > big problem. Even LGPL elicits an immune response in a lot of commercial > contexts. Is there a GSoC policy on this? Last year's GST project was released under MIT license. The GST distribution includes in fact several MIT packages without relicensing it. It is also perfectly possible to develop a single GSoC under a variety of licenses (GPL/LGPL for code that will go in GNU Smalltalk, MIT for something else). If there is need, I'll take care with the student of the FSF copyright assignment fo GST-specific code. In other words, licensing is the least of the problems. BTW, I took a look at Aliens and it would be possible to port CObject to Squeak basing it on Aliens, since it provides a higher-level framework. Doing vice-versa would also be possible. A description of CObject can be found starting at http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/manual/html_node/C-and-Smalltalk.html#C-and-Smalltalk Gilad, in your experience what % of the bindings you wrote were Smalltalk and what % was C code? Did you have any performance problems that you could fix using more C code? Paolo |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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In reply to this post by Mariano Martinez Peck
> We need to write a title, a little description and if possible titles like
> "technical details", "benefits to the students" and "benefits to the > community". > > If you are interested please send it to me and I add it to the list. > > We also need a mentor (and a student, of course)...anyone is willing to do > it ? I'm willing to co-mentor it, depending on the focus of the project, though I'd prefer the Grease projects more. Just a note: our proposals are _ideas_. A student will be able to come up with something completely different, and we will have to find a mentor and everything else. Paolo |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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In reply to this post by Jan Vrany
Hi Jan!
I wasn't aware of gcc-xml. I used srcml for translating C programs into xml files. Cheers, Alexandre On 8 Mar 2010, at 04:49, Jan Vrany wrote: > Hi all, > >> >> >> There is some support for parsing C headers in the Newspeak system. >> Aliens have been ported to Strongtalk as well as Squeak. >> > Couple of year ago, I've created Cface, a semi-automatic C-binding > generator that parses C headers. I was written in a dialect agnostic > way. > It uses gcc-xml for parsing C headers and set of XSLT stylesheets > to create lisp-like representation of a C header file. This lisp-like > file is then read by Smalltalk parser and AST is created. Such AST > is then processed by visitors. Cface was never finished (is there any > piece of code that was ever finished? :-) > > The code is at http://smalltalk.felk.cvut.cz/svn/cvut/fel/cface/ > Feel free to (re)use it. Written in Smalltalk/X. > > > Cheers, Jan > > > > > > > -- _,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;: Alexandre Bergel http://www.bergel.eu ^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;. |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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In reply to this post by Paolo Bonzini-2
On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 16:10, John O'Keefe
<[hidden email]> wrote: > I am willing to co-mentor a Grease project and/or a portable TCPIP > implementation (we will need this for the OpenSSL project anyway). I can contribute the GNU Smalltalk TCP/IP implementation under whatever license. It's all written by me(*) so I can relicense it. (*) see http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=smalltalk.git;a=blob;f=packages/sockets/ChangeLog;h=ab405c72a1698ce00bac93965fc856ef0b3d08ce;hb=HEAD UnixStream.st is not anymore part of the package, and Nicolas Burrus' work is not present anymore since I introduce IPv6 support. Paolo |
Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!
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In reply to this post by Gilad Bracha-2
On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Gilad Bracha <[hidden email]> wrote:
I'm all for it, and hope that John or Eliot can mentor. I would like to mentor something in this area, but I think the basic goal of a cross-platform system is not achievable in GSoC this summer. A specification of a non-blocking architecture and a reference implementation may be possible. Cross-platform is too big for a summer project and will require input from dialects and vendors. What affects my thinking is the following:
1. I designed and implemented the VisualWorks THAPI system, a threaded extension to the VisualWorks FFI. 2. I have a functional prototype of a multi-threaded FFI for the Cog VM based on David Simmons' VMs.
1's architecture is poor, being complex, slow and not very general (allows only FFI calls to be threaded). 2's architecture is rather simple, rather fast and very general (allows threading to be much more widely used, e.g. calls within plugins can be made threaded by surrounding them with two calls, disownVM and ownVM).
3. I have looked at marshalling semantics in the context of the VW FFI, Andreas' Squeak FFI & Alien, and am still of the opinion, one shared by David, - that the generation of marshalling stubs has to be lifted up into Smalltalk based on simple ABI compilers that somehow (e.g. through RTL) communicate down to a JIT that generates and caches marshalling code (i.e. that VM attempts to interpret simplified call specs, as happens in the VM and Squeak FFIs are in general doomed to poor performance and bugs)
- that type coercion code also has to be lifted (e.g. character conversions on strings, null termination, type coercion) - that one be able to depend on a pinning garbage collector to deal with the issues of passing objects through the FFI (although there are workaround hacks that can serve temporarily)
I don't see the point of spending a GSoC trying to implement an obsolete (unthreaded, lowest-common-denominator) cross-platform FFI; it won't get used. I do see benefit in an open-source reference implementation that provides some of the above (at least threading/non-blocking). If people agree that an open-source reference implementation is worth pursuing, then I will happily mentor. What the starting point is will depend on to what extent Cog has been open sourced (Teleplace may choose to open source single-threaded Cog initially, keeping back the threaded FFI for a while, it may not open source Cog at all; we'll see :) ). There are other starting points (current Squeak VMs, GST, Newspeak).
But the outline above is a move towards better cross-platform commonality, not less, because it's an architecture in which the image does more (type coercion, compiling call signatures to RTL sequences) and the VM (except for the threading ;) ) does less. And so this direction does lead towards better cross-platform facilities.
best Eliot |
MIT strikes back (was Re: [smalltalk-research] Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!)
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On 03/10/2010 05:06 PM, Stéphane Ducasse wrote:
>> What the starting point is will depend on to what extent Cog has >> been open sourced (Teleplace may choose to open source >> single-threaded Cog initially, keeping back the threaded FFI for >> a while, it may not open source Cog at all; we'll see :) ). > May be I the only one to notice the:) which I have problem to > understand since for me it announces that COG may not be > open-source. Isn't this what you wanted to allow companies to do, when you chose the MIT license? I don't understand, why should you care? I see some irony... Paolo |
Re: MIT strikes back (was Re: [smalltalk-research] Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!)
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El mié, 10-03-2010 a las 17:16 +0100, Paolo Bonzini escribió:
> On 03/10/2010 05:06 PM, Stéphane Ducasse wrote: > >> What the starting point is will depend on to what extent Cog has > >> been open sourced (Teleplace may choose to open source > >> single-threaded Cog initially, keeping back the threaded FFI for > >> a while, it may not open source Cog at all; we'll see :) ). > > May be I the only one to notice the:) which I have problem to > > understand since for me it announces that COG may not be > > open-source. > > Isn't this what you wanted to allow companies to do, when you chose the > MIT license? I don't understand, why should you care? > > I see some irony... > I don't see such. The point Stef is talking about isn't the license or if Teleplace is right/wrong in keeping close Cog that started from squeakvm sources (I think). They *are* in their right to take it and keep it close if they want (if the license is MIT/BSD) The point is that since a year Eliot has maintained the statement that *sometime* Cog will be available (and implicitly, open sourced) to the community. The text Stef cites, suggest that maybe that wouldn't happen. That Cog maybe will be a closed-source project inside Teleplace and the whole squeak world will continue using the squeakvm just as now. Not that that is bad, the squeakvm we all use now is very capable and has powered a lot of applications without major issues. So if Cog is release, good for all, if not, well, we'll not be in a worst position than now. Cheers > Paolo -- Miguel Cobá http://miguel.leugim.com.mx |
Re: MIT strikes back (was Re: [smalltalk-research] Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!)
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> I don't see such. The point Stef is talking about isn't the license or
> if Teleplace is right/wrong in keeping close Cog that started from > squeakvm sources (I think). They *are* in their right to take it and > keep it close if they want (if the license is MIT/BSD) Exactly. Plus, Eliot has been so kind as to blog about his Cog work, and his posts are so good that it should be possible even to make a GSoC project about reimplementing it. A pity? Yes. A surprise? No. Paolo |
Re: MIT strikes back (was Re: [smalltalk-research] Re: [Esug-list] Google Summer Of Code 2010 news!!!)
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El mié, 10-03-2010 a las 17:48 +0100, Paolo Bonzini escribió:
> > I don't see such. The point Stef is talking about isn't the license or > > if Teleplace is right/wrong in keeping close Cog that started from > > squeakvm sources (I think). They *are* in their right to take it and > > keep it close if they want (if the license is MIT/BSD) > > Exactly. Plus, Eliot has been so kind as to blog about his Cog work, > and his posts are so good that it should be possible even to make a > GSoC project about reimplementing it. > Well, I don't think that would be that easy. Eliot's fame is very well gained. Not something that 99.99% of people could redo. At least I don't even try to do. That is beyond my abilities for sure. > A pity? Yes. > > A surprise? No. > Then I don't see the irony? > Paolo -- Miguel Cobá http://miguel.leugim.com.mx |
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