Dear Pharoers, Ideas are slowly coming, 14 so far, but this is way below the 30+ in previous years. So, stretch your brain, come with some more ideas, which will be interesting for potential students and of course useful for our community. Students you are again welcome to propose such idea by your own. One student idea for now! Ideas so far: http://gsoc2013.esug.org/ideas To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea template: Title: Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced) Possible mentor: (if already known) Possible second mentor: (if already known) Description Technical Details Benefits to the Student Benefits to the Community Best regards Serge and Janko, your this year GSoC admins -- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si
Title: VM simulator in Pharo Level: advanced Possible mentor: Esteban Lorenzano Possible second mentor: Guillermo Polito Description: The VM simulator is a very useful tool when it comes to understand the VM behavior and debugging. However, it does not work in Pharo since long time due to API changes in the core of the system. This project is about bringing the simulator back to life in Pharo to enhance the VM debugging activities. Technical Details: The VM simulator must be ported (or better adapted) and supported by tests. Benefits to the Student: - learn a VM architecture using a higher level language such as Slang to build a VM - understand how several VM components work by debugging and testing them Benefits to the Community: The community will have a tool to debug the VM and be able to evolve it easily. On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@eranova.si>wrote:
Dear Pharoers,
Ideas are slowly coming, 14 so far, but this is way below the 30+ in previous years. So, stretch your brain, come with some more ideas, which will be interesting for potential students and of course useful for our community. Students you are again welcome to propose such idea by your own. One student idea for now!
Ideas so far: http://gsoc2013.esug.org/ideas
To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea template:
Title:
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Possible mentor: (if already known)
Possible second mentor: (if already known)
Description
Technical Details
Benefits to the Student
Benefits to the Community
Best regards Serge and Janko, your this year GSoC admins
-- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si
Janko Can you put andrei chis and nicolas passerini for Debugger improvment projects. I know that alexandre should propose a couple of topics around roassal. I could come up with a couple of other topics. Here is one:
Ideas so far: http://gsoc2013.esug.org/ideas
To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea template:
Title: Better rewriting rule tool
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced) Intermediate
Possible mentor: (if already known) Stephane Ducasse
Possible second mentor: (if already known) Andre Hora
Description The refactoring browser is based on a powerful rewrite engine which transforms AST. However it is quite cumbersome to write rewrite rules. There is a need to build a tool to help programmers defining their own transformation.
Technical Details
Benefits to the Student learning AST learning AST transofrmation learning AST pattern matching User interface definition
Benefits to the Community A tool that is cruelly missing.
Best regards Serge and Janko, your this year GSoC admins
-- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si
On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@eranova.si>wrote:
To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea template:
Title: libev integration in Pharo image and VM Level: advanced Possible mentor: ? Possible second mentor: ? Description: libev (http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/libev.html) is high performance event loop library helps handling large number of concurrent connections and sources of async events. It has been used for a long time as networking library of Node.js. To be used in Pharo suitable interface in image and quite possibly in VM would be needed. Technical Details: It would be necessary to find suitable and efficient non delaying way to transfer callbacks from libev to process in smalltalk image. One path suggested by Elliot Miranda was to investigate Multi threaded VM and see if some of its functionality can be used as is or as a base for further development. Benefits to the Student: Getting in depth understanding of event driven frameworks and inbterfacing to Smalltalk virtual machine Benefits to the Community: Having efficient event driven library available in Smalltalk would open possibility of writing efficient servers in Smalltalk that can handle large number of concurrent connections. Davorin Rusevljan http://www.clopud208.com/
drush66 wrote
On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Janko Mivšek <
janko.mivsek@
>wrote: Title: libev integration in Pharo image and VM
Description: libev (http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/libev.html) is high performance event loop library helps handling large number of concurrent connections and sources of async events. It has been used for a long time as networking library of Node.js. To be used in Pharo suitable interface in image and quite possibly in VM would be needed.
...
Benefits to the Community: Having efficient event driven library available in Smalltalk would open possibility of writing efficient servers in Smalltalk that can handle large number of concurrent connections.
Having an efficient event loop would give us a great tool to handle concurrent connections in a evented manner. Doing those with blocks and objects will be a pleasure. But please consider Node.js is using libuv now (https://github.com/joyent/libuv), as a common layer for most platforms. Regards -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/More-GSoC-ideas-wanted-3-days-left-tp4678354p4678494.h... Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 12:36 AM, Esteban A. Maringolo <emaringolo@gmail.com
wrote:
Having an efficient event loop would give us a great tool to handle concurrent connections in a evented manner. Doing those with blocks and objects will be a pleasure.
But please consider Node.js is using libuv now (https://github.com/joyent/libuv), as a common layer for most platforms.
Yes, good point, maybe we could leave it open and just title item "Event loop library integration" Davorin
* SmalltalkOpenCL https://www.khronos.org/opencl/ Level: Advanced Possible mentor: TB Indentified Possible second mentor: TB Indentified Description: * Build the interface from Pharo to OpenCL.* *This will automatically provide a great opening for Pharo to work with the underlying OpenCL libraries for effective use of multi CPU cores and across GPU's. Infact a Apache Hadoop like capability to do a map reduce can also be leveraged that will make it immensely beneficial for the enterprise stakeholders. Sometimes the very capability does exist is more important than the actual utilization in deciding the use of technology in enterprise units. ( This along with a proper interface to MQ / MQ like messaging interface will be a great platform for enterprise computing ) * Technical Details: In this project the student will: - define and implement an interface to the OpenCL C library ** - work on porting some existing samples to Pharo Smalltalk Benefits to the Student: The student gains a huge understanding of the current trends in parallel programming of modern processors across various hardwares. The student should have good understanding and grasp of C / C++ as well ability to work FFI in Pharo Smalltalk. ** Benefits to the Community: - An interface to an industry standard platform for parallel programming * On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 5:06 AM, Esteban A. Maringolo <emaringolo@gmail.com>wrote:
drush66 wrote
On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Janko Mivšek <
janko.mivsek@
>wrote: Title: libev integration in Pharo image and VM
Description: libev (http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/libev.html) is high performance event loop library helps handling large number of concurrent connections and sources of async events. It has been used for a long time as networking library of Node.js. To be used in Pharo suitable interface in image and quite possibly in VM would be needed.
...
Benefits to the Community: Having efficient event driven library available in Smalltalk would open possibility of writing efficient servers in Smalltalk that can handle large number of concurrent connections.
Having an efficient event loop would give us a great tool to handle concurrent connections in a evented manner. Doing those with blocks and objects will be a pleasure.
But please consider Node.js is using libuv now (https://github.com/joyent/libuv), as a common layer for most platforms.
Regards
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/More-GSoC-ideas-wanted-3-days-left-tp4678354p4678494.h... Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
would be cool to have that bridge :) using NB :) Stef On Mar 28, 2013, at 5:27 PM, S Krish <krishnamachari.sudhakar@gmail.com> wrote:
SmalltalkOpenCL https://www.khronos.org/opencl/
Level: Advanced Possible mentor: TB Indentified Possible second mentor: TB Indentified
Description:
Build the interface from Pharo to OpenCL. This will automatically provide a great opening for Pharo to work with the underlying OpenCL libraries for effective use of multi CPU cores and across GPU's. Infact a Apache Hadoop like capability to do a map reduce can also be leveraged that will make it immensely beneficial for the enterprise stakeholders. Sometimes the very capability does exist is more important than the actual utilization in deciding the use of technology in enterprise units.
( This along with a proper interface to MQ / MQ like messaging interface will be a great platform for enterprise computing )
Technical Details:
In this project the student will: - define and implement an interface to the OpenCL C library - work on porting some existing samples to Pharo Smalltalk
Benefits to the Student:
The student gains a huge understanding of the current trends in parallel programming of modern processors across various hardwares.
The student should have good understanding and grasp of C / C++ as well ability to work FFI in Pharo Smalltalk.
Benefits to the Community:
- An interface to an industry standard platform for parallel programming
On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 5:06 AM, Esteban A. Maringolo <emaringolo@gmail.com> wrote: drush66 wrote
On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Janko Mivšek <
janko.mivsek@
>wrote: Title: libev integration in Pharo image and VM
Description: libev (http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/libev.html) is high performance event loop library helps handling large number of concurrent connections and sources of async events. It has been used for a long time as networking library of Node.js. To be used in Pharo suitable interface in image and quite possibly in VM would be needed.
...
Benefits to the Community: Having efficient event driven library available in Smalltalk would open possibility of writing efficient servers in Smalltalk that can handle large number of concurrent connections.
Having an efficient event loop would give us a great tool to handle concurrent connections in a evented manner. Doing those with blocks and objects will be a pleasure.
But please consider Node.js is using libuv now (https://github.com/joyent/libuv), as a common layer for most platforms.
Regards
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/More-GSoC-ideas-wanted-3-days-left-tp4678354p4678494.h... Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Yes, Squeak already has a work done on OpenCL.. need to check that out and see if NB can replace the bridge done there. On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 5:51 PM, stephane ducasse <stephane.ducasse@free.fr>wrote:
would be cool to have that bridge :) using NB :)
Stef
On Mar 28, 2013, at 5:27 PM, S Krish <krishnamachari.sudhakar@gmail.com> wrote:
* SmalltalkOpenCL https://www.khronos.org/opencl/
Level: Advanced Possible mentor: TB Indentified Possible second mentor: TB Indentified
Description:
* Build the interface from Pharo to OpenCL.* *This will automatically provide a great opening for Pharo to work with the underlying OpenCL libraries for effective use of multi CPU cores and across GPU's. Infact a Apache Hadoop like capability to do a map reduce can also be leveraged that will make it immensely beneficial for the enterprise stakeholders. Sometimes the very capability does exist is more important than the actual utilization in deciding the use of technology in enterprise units.
( This along with a proper interface to MQ / MQ like messaging interface will be a great platform for enterprise computing ) * Technical Details:
In this project the student will: - define and implement an interface to the OpenCL C library ** - work on porting some existing samples to Pharo Smalltalk
Benefits to the Student:
The student gains a huge understanding of the current trends in parallel programming of modern processors across various hardwares.
The student should have good understanding and grasp of C / C++ as well ability to work FFI in Pharo Smalltalk. ** Benefits to the Community:
- An interface to an industry standard platform for parallel programming * On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 5:06 AM, Esteban A. Maringolo < emaringolo@gmail.com> wrote:
drush66 wrote
On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Janko Mivšek <
janko.mivsek@
>wrote: Title: libev integration in Pharo image and VM
Description: libev (http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/libev.html) is high performance event loop library helps handling large number of concurrent connections and sources of async events. It has been used for a long time as networking library of Node.js. To be used in Pharo suitable interface in image and quite possibly in VM would be needed.
...
Benefits to the Community: Having efficient event driven library available in Smalltalk would open possibility of writing efficient servers in Smalltalk that can handle large number of concurrent connections.
Having an efficient event loop would give us a great tool to handle concurrent connections in a evented manner. Doing those with blocks and objects will be a pleasure.
But please consider Node.js is using libuv now (https://github.com/joyent/libuv), as a common layer for most platforms.
Regards
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/More-GSoC-ideas-wanted-3-days-left-tp4678354p4678494.h... Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@eranova.si>wrote:
To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea template:
Title: Amber CouchApp framework Level: medium Possible mentor: ? Possible second mentor: ? Description: CouchApps, are javascript HTML applications which use CouchDB as backend, but also get served directly from CouchDB server. Purpose of this project would be to provide means that such applications can be developed easily with Amber Smalltalk. Technical Details: Currently Amber uses WebDav interface to store source code. This should be overridden to store it into the couchdb. Proper way of including of all amber generated javasciprt files should also be found. Benefits to the Student: Getting to know development process of CouchDB and Amber Smalltalk applications Benefits to the Community: Amber CouchApps would be very simple to deploy and provide combined powers of Smalltalk and CouchDB Davorin Rusevljan http://www.clopud208.com/
I have two not well thought out ideas for projects. This is the first: On 03/26/2013 04:36 AM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
Title:
Create a package that integrates the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) into Squeak/Pharo
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Beginner?
Possible mentor: (if already known)
Possible second mentor: (if already known)
I could help out (or not) but may be someone better to lead.
Description
See: http://cldr.unicode.org/ The CLDR is a maintained set of locale specific information for use in programs. Creating a package that integrates it into Squeak & Pharo would help with i18n and l10n for the platforms. It would be preferable to be able to load a limited number of locales rather than the whole thing into every image. We would probably benefit from having a Fuel based data repo somewhere that can access the updated and interpreted standards.
Technical Details
The CLDR is constantly edited and updated and published as a spec and set of XML files. Those files would need to be regularly downloaded and parsed to create a publicly available
Benefits to the Student
Work with international standards, web services, wider knowledge of the affects of the actions of politicians and history. umm.
Benefits to the Community Being able to properly interpret, compare, and format currencies, dates, times, inside their images.
This is the second of two not well fleshed out ideas. On 03/26/2013 04:36 AM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
Title:
Implement Fast Byzantine Paxos in Slang
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Advanced
Possible mentor: (if already known)
Possible second mentor: (if already known)
I am willing to help out but I'm sure there's someone better as I don't know slang or how to go about implementing Paxos. yet.
Description
Paxos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos_%28computer_science%29) is a framework for solving consensus in a network of unreliable processors. A python implementation is available here: http://openreplica.org/
Technical Details
Could just port ConCoord (the openreplica.org's backend) from Python to Slang rather than starting from scratch.
Benefits to the Student
Learn Smalltalk, Slang. Implement something hard.
Benefits to the Community With enough images you can just persist everything in the image and each image can be a reasonable size.
Hi Paul, Can you continue describing your idea so that one will grasp the essentials without needing to open first the Wikipedia links. Idea looks promising, just not clarified yet enough. I'm pretty user you can continue evolving it by yourself. Best regards Janko Dne 27. 03. 2013 17:39, piše Paul DeBruicker:
This is the second of two not well fleshed out ideas.
On 03/26/2013 04:36 AM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
Title:
Implement Fast Byzantine Paxos in Slang
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Advanced
Possible mentor: (if already known)
Possible second mentor: (if already known)
I am willing to help out but I'm sure there's someone better as I don't know slang or how to go about implementing Paxos. yet.
Description
Paxos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos_%28computer_science%29) is a framework for solving consensus in a network of unreliable processors. A python implementation is available here: http://openreplica.org/
Technical Details
Could just port ConCoord (the openreplica.org's backend) from Python to Slang rather than starting from scratch.
Benefits to the Student
Learn Smalltalk, Slang. Implement something hard.
Benefits to the Community With enough images you can just persist everything in the image and each image can be a reasonable size.
-- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si
On 03/27/2013 10:30 AM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
Hi Paul,
Can you continue describing your idea so that one will grasp the essentials without needing to open first the Wikipedia links. Idea looks promising, just not clarified yet enough. I'm pretty user you can continue evolving it by yourself.
Best regards Janko
Sure I'll give it a shot, but caveat emptor:
Dne 27. 03. 2013 17:39, piše Paul DeBruicker:
This is the second of two not well fleshed out ideas.
On 03/26/2013 04:36 AM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
Title:
Implement Fast Byzantine Paxos in Slang
Paxos is a system for ensuring consensus across a network of processors (e.g. multiple images on multiple computers or cpus on the same hardware). Fast Byzantine Paxos is Paxos extended to ensure reliability in the face of arbitrary failures among processors, lying from processors, collusion among more than once lying processor, etc. Fast Byzantine Paxos is just a version of Byzantine Paxos that omits a step seemingly trading network latency for additional CPU work. But I'm not sure of the tradeoffs.
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Advanced
Possible mentor: (if already known)
Possible second mentor: (if already known)
I am willing to help out but I'm sure there's someone better as I don't know slang or how to go about implementing Paxos. yet.
Description
Paxos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos_%28computer_science%29) is a framework for solving consensus in a network of unreliable processors. A python implementation is available here: http://openreplica.org/
My basic understanding is that among a set of images (technically "processors" but I'm going to use image because it seems more relevant here) you construct a quorum. That quorum calculates and agrees on a response to a client request. The quorum survives and is the unit of computation but the individual images inside it change in make up and number through time as images and machines die and come back. The quorum maintains and replicates the state among its member images. The images in the quorum can at any time assume at least one of 5 roles (client, acceptor, proposer, learner, leader) for that quorum and most play all but leader all the time. The images can participate in more than one quorum. There is only one 'leader' per quorum (but the leader can be any image in the quorum and is 'elected' by the quorum members) and sends messages to others in the quorum to process. I'm not sure of the gory details but the client sends a request to the quorum, the quorum processes it, and sends back the one agreed upon response regardless of how many machines are in the quorum that fail or fail to respond during the computation. Paxos describes all the intra process communication that needs to take place to ensure that the quorum provides reliable responses to requests in the face of hardware and network failures. Implementing it in Slang would potentially make it faster than in image (guessing) because C and it could be a plugin.
Technical Details
Could just port ConCoord (the openreplica.org's backend) from Python to Slang rather than starting from scratch.
It is my understanding that implementing Paxos from scratch and covering all corner cases and failure modes is very very hard. Probably also confusing. Sorry I don't know more but here's a zip of the papers I've collected that describe ways and issues around implementing it: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4460862/paxos-papers.zip
Benefits to the Student
Learn Smalltalk, Slang. Implement something hard.
Also build a robust distributed Smalltalk system.
Benefits to the Community With enough images you can just persist everything in the image and each image can be a reasonable size.
Other benefits include making a (hardware, network) failure resistant server Smalltalk process
Wow! That is something I just researched a few days before and think it would be really helpful for distributed stuff Just want to say Norbert Am 27.03.2013 um 17:39 schrieb Paul DeBruicker <pdebruic@gmail.com>:
This is the second of two not well fleshed out ideas.
On 03/26/2013 04:36 AM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
Title: Implement Fast Byzantine Paxos in Slang
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Advanced
Possible mentor: (if already known)
Possible second mentor: (if already known)
I am willing to help out but I'm sure there's someone better as I don't know slang or how to go about implementing Paxos. yet.
Description Paxos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos_%28computer_science%29) is a framework for solving consensus in a network of unreliable processors. A python implementation is available here: http://openreplica.org/
Technical Details Could just port ConCoord (the openreplica.org's backend) from Python to Slang rather than starting from scratch.
Benefits to the Student Learn Smalltalk, Slang. Implement something hard.
Benefits to the Community With enough images you can just persist everything in the image and each image can be a reasonable size.
2013/3/26 Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@eranova.si>
To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea template:
*
Gadget (the inspector) Level: Intermediate Possible mentor: Juan Pablo Sandoval Alcocer Possible second mentor: Alexandre Bergel Description: Understanding how an application behaves at runtime requires adequate tools. However, MessageTally, the standard Smalltalk code profiler, is very limited in the kind of analyzis it can carry out. Spy (a profiler framework) is an attempt that has been made in the past, however Spy suffers from poor design, typically forcing profilers to contain a heavy dose of duplicate code. In this project, we plan to produce Gadget, a portable, open and flexible profiling platform. Hapao [1], Kai [2] and Rizel [3] will be migrated from Spy to Gadget. Gadget will not only provide features to measure code coverage, time consumption, snapshot comparison, but will provide tools to monitor memory consumption. All these features will provide to Pharo developers the tools to create domain specific profilers and reuse the features of different implemented profilers in Gadget. Technical Details: In this project the student will: - define and implement a profiler metamodel. - learn and implement instrumentation and/or sampling techniques. - migrate three profilers from Spy to Gadget. Benefits to the Student: The student will (i) address performance problems; maintainability, design and evolution issues. (ii) get a better understanding of the executing environment of Pharo; (iii) learn reflection and dynamic analysis basics. Benefits to the Community: - Have a new open-source profiler framework with a smooth implementation of the feedback and experience from the community. * * - Allow the community to develop new profilers on top of Gadget which are easier to implement and maintain. *
A short idea for a GSoC project to improve the debugger. Cheers, Andrei ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Improving the inspection of expressions in the debugger Level: beginner/intermediate Possible mentor: Andrei Chis Possible second mentor: Nicolas Passerini, Tudor Girba Description: The debugger is a central tool in any programming language, as it helps developers understand the dynamic behaviour of applications. Furthermore, in Smalltalk, it can also be used to write code and thus extend applications while they are running. One important aspect that is missing in the current Pharo debugger, is the ability to view the value of intermediate expressions involved in method calls. For example consider the call: ^ self doSomething: (anArray at: 2) with: aStream next onlyIf: aCondition isValid. In order to view the values of the expressions (anArray at: 2), (aStream next) and (aCondition isValid) we have to directly go into the actual method call. Furthermore, viewing the return value can be more difficult, if we do not store it into a variable. The goal of this project is to add support for exploring these kind of expressions by using dedicated widgets. For example, one alternative might be adding pseudo variables into inspectors, while another might consist in using popups that display these values for any expression selected in the editor. Technical Details: The student will have to understand how the debugger works, and will have to familiarise himself with the new debugging infrastructure. Also, he'll have to look into at least a framework for building UIs (Spec/Glamour). Benefits to the Student: He will get a deep understanding of how debugging is done, on how the debugger works and he'll also interact with a framework for building UIs. Benefits to the Community: The community will bet a better debugger, in which values passed and returned by methods could be easily explored using different widgets. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@eranova.si> wrote:
Dear Pharoers,
Ideas are slowly coming, 14 so far, but this is way below the 30+ in previous years. So, stretch your brain, come with some more ideas, which will be interesting for potential students and of course useful for our community. Students you are again welcome to propose such idea by your own. One student idea for now!
Ideas so far: http://gsoc2013.esug.org/ideas
To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea template:
Title:
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Possible mentor: (if already known)
Possible second mentor: (if already known)
Description
Technical Details
Benefits to the Student
Benefits to the Community
Best regards Serge and Janko, your this year GSoC admins
-- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si
Are we still on time for the party? *Title:* Smalltalk Native-Code Debugger. *Level*: Intermediate. *Possible mentor:* Guido Chari. *Possible second mentor:* Javier Pimás. *Description:* Smalltalk is a powerful environment for software developing. It allows the development of high-level abstractions, and it is highly dynamic and reflective, which promotes analyzing and changing objects at run-time. Debuggers are essential tools, particularly in Smalltalk because they allow developers to understand a program as well as to find and fix defects as they are running. Debugging native applications, on the other hand, is very hard. Many native applications can't be developed using high level abstractions. Furthermore, as they consist of native-code, debugging them requires understanding and modification of very low-level operations on raw memory at run-time [1], and also a close interaction with the operating system [2][3]. Using Smalltalk to control and debug low-level code would be a great aid in the native-code development process. It would allow not only to control programs status and trace, but also to easily develop a myriad of high-level tools that analyze and modify native-code as it runs. *Technical Details:* There are many different kinds of debuggers, and many mechanisms are already mature for implementing features in them[4]. Warp[5] is a recently born project to implement on Pharo a wrapper for the PTrace system call, the essential operating system debugging API. With the addition of already existing powerful high-level tools for low-level programming, as NativeBoost[6] and Waterfall[7], this project will allow to have a native debugger interface for any process from a Smalltalk image, and create a complete ecosystem for Native-Code developing from Smalltalk. The first steps will include understanding the ptrace system call, and about x86 instructions coding and decoding. This can be done by completing the wrapper of ptrace, which consists of only one function with many different functionalities and improving the disassembler for x86 binary code. After this the student will be able to develop tools for aiding in native-code debugging, like a specialized inspectors and debuggers for watching the value of variables, adding breakpoints, watchpoints, modifying memory and code. *Benefits to the Student:* * gain experience in high-level and low-level programming. * learn about how debuggers work under the hood * gain experience on the usage and development of a complete Smalltalk native-code development toolchain. * learn about native-code assembling and disassembling *Benefits to the Community:* * Lately, there has been more and more evidence that high-level written software for low-level development is starting to succeed. Smalltalk provides an ideal platform for exploring this domain because of its powerful reflective capabilities. NativeBoost already promotes lot of new possibilities for working dynamically on the Pharo environment with complex low-level tasks. More tools for having a complete and outstanding tool-chain are needed and the native debugging interface is one of the most prominent and promising. * A native-code debugger will help Smalltalk VM and low-level programmers, because it will leverage all their Smalltalk programming skills into low-level programming. It could even bring closer non-VM programmers to VM code, as it would remove a barrier of entrance to VM programming. * Having a fully working native-code debugger would be a killer app that can attract lots of low-level developers to Smalltalk, specially Virtual Machine and C/C++ programmers. Cheers, Guido and Javier. [1] http://mikecvet.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/ptrace-tutorial/ [2] http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~courses/coe518/LinuxJournal/elj2002-103-ptrace1.pd... [3] http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~courses/coe518/LinuxJournal/elj2002-104-ptrace2.pd... [4] How debuggers work: algorithms, data structures, and architecture, Jonathan B. Rosenberg, ISBN: 0-471-14966-7 [5] http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~melkyades/Warp [6] https://code.google.com/p/nativeboost/ [7] http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~mate/Waterfall On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 8:36 AM, Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@eranova.si>wrote:
Dear Pharoers,
Ideas are slowly coming, 14 so far, but this is way below the 30+ in previous years. So, stretch your brain, come with some more ideas, which will be interesting for potential students and of course useful for our community. Students you are again welcome to propose such idea by your own. One student idea for now!
Ideas so far: http://gsoc2013.esug.org/ideas
To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea template:
Title:
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Possible mentor: (if already known)
Possible second mentor: (if already known)
Description
Technical Details
Benefits to the Student
Benefits to the Community
Best regards Serge and Janko, your this year GSoC admins
-- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si
-- Lic. Javier Pimás Ciudad de Buenos Aires
thanks guys for writing this down! I didn't have the power anymore :( On 2013-03-29, at 02:34, Javier Pimás <elpochodelagente@gmail.com> wrote:
Are we still on time for the party?
*Title:* Smalltalk Native-Code Debugger. *Level*: Intermediate. *Possible mentor:* Guido Chari. *Possible second mentor:* Javier Pimás.
*Description:*
Smalltalk is a powerful environment for software developing. It allows the development of high-level abstractions, and it is highly dynamic and reflective, which promotes analyzing and changing objects at run-time. Debuggers are essential tools, particularly in Smalltalk because they allow developers to understand a program as well as to find and fix defects as they are running.
Debugging native applications, on the other hand, is very hard. Many native applications can't be developed using high level abstractions. Furthermore, as they consist of native-code, debugging them requires understanding and modification of very low-level operations on raw memory at run-time [1], and also a close interaction with the operating system [2][3].
Using Smalltalk to control and debug low-level code would be a great aid in the native-code development process. It would allow not only to control programs status and trace, but also to easily develop a myriad of high-level tools that analyze and modify native-code as it runs.
*Technical Details:*
There are many different kinds of debuggers, and many mechanisms are already mature for implementing features in them[4]. Warp[5] is a recently born project to implement on Pharo a wrapper for the PTrace system call, the essential operating system debugging API. With the addition of already existing powerful high-level tools for low-level programming, as NativeBoost[6] and Waterfall[7], this project will allow to have a native debugger interface for any process from a Smalltalk image, and create a complete ecosystem for Native-Code developing from Smalltalk.
The first steps will include understanding the ptrace system call, and about x86 instructions coding and decoding. This can be done by completing the wrapper of ptrace, which consists of only one function with many different functionalities and improving the disassembler for x86 binary code. After this the student will be able to develop tools for aiding in native-code debugging, like a specialized inspectors and debuggers for watching the value of variables, adding breakpoints, watchpoints, modifying memory and code.
*Benefits to the Student:*
* gain experience in high-level and low-level programming. * learn about how debuggers work under the hood * gain experience on the usage and development of a complete Smalltalk native-code development toolchain. * learn about native-code assembling and disassembling
*Benefits to the Community:*
* Lately, there has been more and more evidence that high-level written software for low-level development is starting to succeed. Smalltalk provides an ideal platform for exploring this domain because of its powerful reflective capabilities. NativeBoost already promotes lot of new possibilities for working dynamically on the Pharo environment with complex low-level tasks. More tools for having a complete and outstanding tool-chain are needed and the native debugging interface is one of the most prominent and promising.
* A native-code debugger will help Smalltalk VM and low-level programmers, because it will leverage all their Smalltalk programming skills into low-level programming. It could even bring closer non-VM programmers to VM code, as it would remove a barrier of entrance to VM programming.
* Having a fully working native-code debugger would be a killer app that can attract lots of low-level developers to Smalltalk, specially Virtual Machine and C/C++ programmers.
Cheers, Guido and Javier.
[1] http://mikecvet.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/ptrace-tutorial/ [2] http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~courses/coe518/LinuxJournal/elj2002-103-ptrace1.pd... [3] http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~courses/coe518/LinuxJournal/elj2002-104-ptrace2.pd...
[4] How debuggers work: algorithms, data structures, and architecture, Jonathan B. Rosenberg, ISBN: 0-471-14966-7 [5] http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~melkyades/Warp [6] https://code.google.com/p/nativeboost/ [7] http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~mate/Waterfall
On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 8:36 AM, Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@eranova.si>wrote:
Dear Pharoers,
Ideas are slowly coming, 14 so far, but this is way below the 30+ in previous years. So, stretch your brain, come with some more ideas, which will be interesting for potential students and of course useful for our community. Students you are again welcome to propose such idea by your own. One student idea for now!
Ideas so far: http://gsoc2013.esug.org/ideas
To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea template:
Title:
Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Possible mentor: (if already known)
Possible second mentor: (if already known)
Description
Technical Details
Benefits to the Student
Benefits to the Community
Best regards Serge and Janko, your this year GSoC admins
-- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si
-- Lic. Javier Pimás Ciudad de Buenos Aires
Hi, Bellow a proposal Thanks Hilaire =Title= Framework to render and to edit LaTeX formula =Level (beginner, intermediate, advanced)= Advanced =Mentor= Hilaire Fernandes =Second mentor= =Description= The framework should come in two parts: rendering of LaTeX math formula. LaTeX equation editor =Technical Details= The tools should depend on: Pharo freetype interface to render font. the Morph user interface tool kit. No external libraries or on-line services should be used. Why LaTeX and not MathML: LaTeX formula can be hand edited, MathML not really as there are not very human readable. =Benefits to the Student= Learn how to represent, to render and to edit mathematic expressions. Learn how to design an editor tool: model, view and controller. =Benefits to the Community A library to render and to edit mathematic formula. Le 26/03/2013 12:36, Janko Mivšek a écrit :> Dear Pharoers,
Ideas are slowly coming, 14 so far, but this is way below the 30+ in previous years. So, stretch your brain, come with some more ideas, which will be interesting for potential students and of course useful for our community. Students you are again welcome to propose such idea by your own. One student idea for now!
-- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu
participants (13)
-
Andrei Vasile Chis -
Camillo Bruni -
Davorin Rusevljan -
Esteban A. Maringolo -
Guillermo Polito -
Hilaire Fernandes -
Janko Mivšek -
Javier Pimás -
Juan Pablo Sandoval Alcocer -
Norbert Hartl -
Paul DeBruicker -
S Krish -
stephane ducasse