User:Bumi

GSoC 2016 application

A: An introduction

• Please describe yourself in three sentences, one of them regarding your current studies.
  • My name is Barbara Lócsi, I am a Hungarian first year undergraduate software engineering student at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. I like math, programing, reading novels and solving Rubik's Cubes. I am determined and dedicated, and if I set a goal I won't stop until it is reached.
• Which languages do you speak?
  • Hungarian (native), English (fluent)
• What's your overall background?
  • Computer science.
• Why do you want to participate in the Google Summer of Code? What do you hope to gain by doing so?
  • Before looking into GSoC and the organizations I didn't really know much about open source and free softwares. Obviously, I have heard about it, but just thought that I can look on its source code and that's all. I didn't realized before, that I can actually contribute and that it is welcomed by the community. I believe Google Summer of Code is a really good opportunity to get into open-source or free development. And also I am here to learn, gain experience and extend knowledge.
• Please also describe your previous experience with the GSoC, if any.
  • I have no prior experience with GSoC, I just know about it for about a month.
• Why are you choosing Octave?
  • In the last semester I had a course on which I have learned about linear algebra and I really liked it. So when I was wandering around and saw the "Generalised eigenvalue problem" project idea, I was really interested in it and excited to know more about it.

C: Contact

• Please state the nick you use on IRC and any other communication channel related to Octave.
  • Bumi or bumi
• Which time zone do you live in? Will that change over GSoC duration?
  • UTC+2 during summer, it is unlikely to change.
• Please state the timeframe (in UTC+0) when you feel most comfortable working during GSoC. Where are your time buffers?
  • Anything between 8:00 to 20:00 is good for me and could try to stay for bit later when needed.

E: Coding experience

• Please describe your experience with C++, Octave or Matlab m-scripts, OpenGL and Qt.
  • I am learning C++ in this semester. I have no prior experience with the rest, but started using and learning about Octave and Matlab by myself.
• Please describe your experience with other programming languages.
  • I had a C course in the previous semester, and also learned a bit Assembly. Before these I used C# for my own pet projects.
• Please describe your experience with being in a development team.
  • I have no experience.
• Please describe the biggest project you have written code for and what you learned by doing so. Also describe your role in that project over time.
  • I created a snake game in C (using SDL) as homework for the previous semesters programing course. It was an independent task so I did all of the work. For example I learned using SDL, dynamic memory allocation, handling independent .c and .h files.
• Please state the commits and patches you already contributed to Octave.
  • bug #36437

F: Feeling fine

• Please describe (in short) your experience with the following tools:
  • IRC and mailing lists
    • I am using IRC and have used mail list before. I am also subscribed to octave-maintainers.
  • Mercurial or other source code management systems
    • Just started using mercurial, not so much experience with others.
  • Mediawiki or other wiki software
    • I haven't used it before.
  • make, gcc, gdb or other development tools
    • Just started using make gcc and gdb, got help from IRC and google is my friend.
• What will make you actively stay in our community after this GSoC is over?
  • I will have a course in the next semester that uses Matlab so probably I will be around if I have time.

O: Only out of interest

• Did you ever hear about Octave before?
  • No, I did not.
  • If not, where would you expect or advise us to do advertising?
• What was the first question concerning Octave you could not find an answer to rather quickly?
  • How to search in mail list archives? nabble

P: Prerequisites

• Please state the operating system you work with.
  • I have Windows 10 and Debian 8 on virtual machine, it is my own laptop I have complete access.
• Please estimate an average time per day you will be able to access
  • an internet connection
    • 24h
  • a computer
    • 24h
  • a computer with your progressing work on
    • 24h
• Please describe the degree to which you can install new software on computers you have access to.
  • Complete access.

S: Self-assessment

• Please describe how useful criticism looks from your point of view as committing student.
  • I like to receive advices, guides, help, and useful criticism as it helps my progression and I can learn from it.
• How autonomous are you when developing:
  • Do you like to discuss changes intensively and not start coding until you know what you want to do?
    • I like to be full aware of the task and the aims before starting coding.

Y: Your task

• Did you select a task from our list of proposals and ideas?
  • If yes, what task did you choose? Please describe what part of it you especially want to focus on if you can already provide this information.
• Please provide a rough estimated timeline for your work on the task.

I chose the Generalised eigenvalue problem.

Certain calling forms of the eig function are currently missing, including:

• preliminary balancing
• computing left eigenvectors as a third output
• choosing among generalized eigenvalue algorithms
• choosing among return value formats of the eigenvalues (vector or matrix) see more here.

The project's aim is to implement these functionalities.

Matlab	Octave
e = eig(A) [V,D] = eig(A) [V,D,W] = eig(A) e = eig(A,B) [V,D] = eig(A,B) [V,D,W] = eig(A,B) [___] = eig(A,balanceOption) [___] = eig(A,B,algorithm) [___] = eig(___,eigvalOption)	lambda = eig (A) lambda = eig (A, B) [V, lambda] = eig (A) [V, lambda] = eig (A, B)

Timeline

• Community Bonding period (Until May 22)
  • Get acquainted with the code and LAPACK
• Week 1-2 (May 23 - Jun 5)
  • Finals, non-coding time
• Week 3-4 (Jun 6 - Jun 19)
  • Add left eigenvector calculation
  • Creating tests
• Midterm evaluations (Jun 20 - Jun 27)
• Week 6 (Jun 27 - Jul 3)
  • Implementing preliminary balancing, testing
• Week 7-10 (Jul 4 - Jul 31)
  • algorithm choosing for eigenvalue calculation (chol or qz)
  • creating tests
• Week 11 (Aug 1 - Aug 7)
  • documenting
• Week 12-13 (Aug 8 - Aug 28)
  • deciding return value format of the eigenvalues (vector or matrix)
  • testing, documenting