Online Developer Meeting (2023-06-27)

Today's topics[edit]

FYI: Colin Macdonald applied (and received) the GitLab for Open Source programme for https://GitLab.com/gnu-octave.
- alternative to github.com/gnu-octave.
- large number of CI/CD minutes, compared to the low-tier offering.
- It must be renewed yearly (by Colin, although I think that can be changed).

VM updates
- VM was pushed last week.
- Jwe has list of todo activities and questions about the VM. E.g. future maintenance, coding style, etc.
- Arun reported that tuned gcc-specific code is some 20% slower than clang-compiled generic code. Will test more to see if compiler-specific code is needed.
- Jwe reported finding further Matlab incompatibilities in classdef code. Andreas stated that was OK and not of much concern to end users, who would prefer domain functionality over strict Matlab compatibility, especially in object-oriented code.

GSoC activities
- Pythonic project: going well, we have weekly meetings, see blog posts for plans and progress.
- Andreas expressed concern about the kNN project's slow progress. Will meet with his student this week.
- Any travel for GSoC? Colin: small chance I could go, but happy for someone else too.

Other stuff
- Rik enquired on status of transfer from FSF to NumFOCUS. Jwe reports in progress. Waiting for certain documents to be finalized and signed. Arun reports financial mechanisms in place to transfer funds when ready.
- Rik created polls on Discourse re timing for Octave conferences and online activities like code sprints. Voting ongoing.

GSoC updates
- Andreas and Nick described initiation so far. Students start work next week.
VM update and planning:
- Add to default by Jun 30, giving 5-6 months of wider testing?
- jwe will review in next 3-4 weeks. If he doesn't do it by the next meeting, the VM is to be pushed. Set default runtime compilation setting to false but configuration can be left enabled by default.
New warnings from GCC 13.1 (GUI threading issue?)
- Others will try to replicate as they get gcc 13 on their machines. No obvious bugs came to mind but some things may need to be reworked to avoid intermediates.
Status of coding community events?
- No updates. Polls haven't been made yet.
Discourse policy on AI bots.
- Agreed that bots are bad as of now, spread bogus answers, cause much extra work for moderators. One user was already suspended. The FAQ will be updated so that "post your own stuff" precludes AI copy-paste.