My Google Sommer of Code Project

[Mark Doliner]

On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 3:52 AM, Ali Albazaz <me at melixer.de> wrote:
> Am 04.04.2010 02:17, schrieb Mark Doliner:
> On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 11:43 AM, Ali Albazaz <me at melixer.de> wrote:
>
> Hey!
>
> My Name is Ali Albazaz, 20. I Study Computer Science in Bonn, Germany,
> second semester.
> When I was 16 I was involved in the gaim project the first time. There I
> fixed some small
> bugs with the help of Sean Egan and thats the reason why my name is still
> available in the
> Copyright file.
>
> Now I'm going to apply for the Google Sommer of Code Program and support
> pidgin project.
> I'm using pidgin now for 7 years mostly for ICQ  everyday (because ICQ is
> very popular in
> my region). Therefore I know about many feautures that the Original ICQ
> Client supports
> and the Pidgin ICQ-Implementation doesn't.
>
> Last week I started a survey (with 129 persons) to see which things are most
> important to
> the people and have to be implemented first. Here are their suggestions
> ordered by popularity:
>
> - About every 4th person complained about the file transfer problem between
> other clients.
> - Many people want the old "block" function back because in the past it
> people got blocked
>     couldn't see one online but were able to write one. The new function is
> useful but removing the
>     old function is wrong. The people need both of the functions.
> - Webcam and voice chat should be implemented
> - Flash games
> - Authorization problems: after the authorization sometimes the people are
> two times in my list and if I remove one of them they both disapear
> - Status-Messages doesn't work between other clients
> - Invisible status doesn't work sometimes
>
> The other suggestions are good but not so popular like these mentioned
> above. Therefore I picked out these themes:
> Filetransfer, block-function, Autorization, Status Messages and if there is
> time the invisible status.
>
> I want to fix this things between May 24th and August 9th - that means in 11
> Weeks.
> Maybe you have some instructions or hints to me? Are there things that are
> something like undevelopable in 11 weeks? :-D
> I would be glad! :-)
>
>
> I think that's a great list, and definitely feasible in 11 weeks.  You
> could possible add more to it, but I'm not sure what.  Maybe better
> handling of character encoding for offline messages.
>
> Also, you may want to look at last summer's privacy improvement
> project: http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/GSoC2009/PrivacyRewrite  It
> hoped to improve the usability of blocking vs. invisibility for ICQ.
>
> --Mark


> Are you sure I should add more to the list? I mean I have other good ideas
> from the survey but I'm also a student and have to study in that time and
> learn a bit at home... ;-)

Some mentors suggest that students think of Summer of Code as
equivalent to a full-time job.

>From http://socghop.appspot.com/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2010/faqs#student_time
:
Q: How much time is required to participate as a student in Google
Summer of Code?

A: The amount of time you will need depends on both the scope of your
project and the requirements of your mentoring organization. While
your organization may offer some flexibility around milestone
completion dates, you should expect your project to be your primary
focus this summer. If you have a great internship starting soon or
you're planning a month long backpacking trip, you likely won't be a
good candidate for the program.

> When they take me I have about one month time to read some code and to
> settle in. But I've no idea how complex the oscar part is built. Maybe I add
> more Ideas to the "If there is time I'll do" list.

An "if there is time I'll do list" sounds like a good idea to me.

> Other popular things are:
> - The profile picture is smaller than in ICQ

This might be fixed in the source code already, but not in a released
version of Pidgin:
"Allow setting and displaying icons between 1x1 and 100x100 pixels.
Previously only icons between 48x48 and 52x64 were allowed."

> - Text styling (Bold, Italic, Font-Size...)
> - While searching numbers in the history it shouldn't search in time-stamps
> - Filter for Bots wanting authorization (Spam filter)

There may already be a plugin for this.

> Can anyone tell me what things goolge is expecting? I really want to do this
> job but don't know how to have the best application :-\

The FAQ I linked to above has some advice for students.  This also
looks good: http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code/wiki/AdviceforStudents

--Mark