User:Cardinot

GSoC 2013 - Application

A: An introduction

• Please describe yourself in three sentences, one of them regarding your current studies.

My name is Marcos Cardinot, I study Computer Engineering and Physics. I am fascinated by mathematics and computing, I love making new friends, work in groups and learn new things.

• Which languages do you speak?

1. English
2. Portuguese
3. Spanish

• What's your overall background?

I am in the fourth year of Computer Engineering at the Rio de Janeiro State University and Physics at Federal Center Of Technological Education Of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

• Why do you want to participate in the Google Summer of Code? What do you hope to gain by doing so?

The GSoC is important to place the student in a powerful community, providing support for a student to work fully for this community. Therefore, I want to participate in GSoC because I want to be part of this community and I want to use my experience to develop many things and also to learn from the high-level programmers that are present in this community. I hope to make new friends in the community and continue contributing after GSoC.

• Please also describe your previous experience with the GSoC.

I participated in GSoC last year, my project aimed to develop new interactive tools for Scilab. I developed a new and complete graphics editor, plot browser and gave new possibilities as interactive, object selection, copy, delete and move.

• Why are you choosing Octave?

Octave is extremely used at my university and I really would very much like use my experience to contribute new features!

C: Contact

• Please state the (unique and identical where possible) nick you use on IRC and any other communication channel related to Octave.

My nickname is cardinot.

• Which time zone do you live in? Will that change over GSoC duration?

My time zone along the whole GSoC is UTC-3.

• Please state the timeframe (in UTC+0) when you feel most comfortable working during GSoC. Where are your time buffers?

I usually code around 12.00 to 22.00!

E: Coding experience

• Please describe your experience with C++, Octave or Matlab m-scripts, OpenGL and Qt.

I program in C/C++ a few years, I developed an API for communication wifi with a robot (KheperaIII) in C++, made ​​major corrections and contributions in C++ for Scilab, including some work in OpenGL. At university I develop small projects interface with Qt and I used Octave to implement dozens of numerical methods algorithms, deterministic and stochastic, like Firefly, Hook and Jeeves, Rosenbrock, Simplex, Steepest Descent, Davidon-Fletcher-Powell, Luus-Jaakola, Simulated Anneling and others. To build improvements for Scilab, I spent some time researching and analyzing the graphical features of Matlab. In Matlab I also have used some toolboxes for to study neural networks.

• Please describe your experience with other programming languages.

I have a lot of experience in Java, a large part of my contribution to Scilab was made in the language, in addition, I also developed some applications for small and medium size. I also have extensive experience in web development, especially with PHP, HTML, CSS and SQL. I did a lot of modifications on the shareware platform Vbulletin (PHP + MySQL).

• Please describe your experience with being in a development team.

I developed some jobs to automation robots, applying some genetic algorithms. These works have been developed in a team of 6 developers in laboratory automation at my university, we met in the lab three times a week and we communicated by IRC, managing code with GIT. Most parts of the development in Scilab also required group work, for this I used mailing lists and IRC.

• 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.

My biggest project was conducted in Scilab. It was a fantastic experience, I learned a lot and managed to develop tools that will be very useful for the Scilab community. Some features of this work are already described in previous questions.

F: Feeling fine

• Please describe (in short) your experience with the following tools:

• IRC and mailing lists

I use IRC and mailing lists a few years. They are excellent to keep up with development groups.

• Mercurial or other source code management systems

I have a lot of experience with GIT and also I've used SVN in some projects. I don't have a lot of experience in Mercurial, but I'm sure it will not be a problem =D.

• Mediawiki or other wiki software

I am familiar with Mediawiki, as I have written some tutorials on some sites with this software.

• make, gcc, gdb or other development tools

I am comfortable with using these tools.

• What will make you actively stay in our community after this GSoC is over?

As mentioned in previous questions, the integration with the community is one of my goals. So if I make friends, helping people, and develop important things along the GSoC, I'll be even more excited to continue contributing.

O: Only out of interest

• Did you ever hear about Octave before?
  • If so, when and where? How far have you been involved already?

Yes, I have known the Octave four years ago, at my university, in Brazil.

P: Prerequisites

• Please state the operating system you work with.
  • If you have access to more than one, please state them and the conditions under which you are granted this access.

I have a notebook with Ubuntu and Windows 7. Eventually can I use a MacBook of a lab at my university, to perform some tests (if necessary).

• Please estimate an average time per day you will be able to (if separated) access
  • an internet connection
  • a computer
  • a computer with your progressing work on

I am all the time with my laptop, I just disconnect the internet when I sleep...

I understand the importance of dedication to the project, so I can guarantee that I will be absolutely free for GSoC and that I can accomplish much more than 40 hours per week.

• Please describe the degree up to which you can install new software on computers you have access to.

I can install any software on the computers mentioned!

S: Self-assessment

• Please describe how useful criticism looks from your point of view as committing student.

Criticisms are essential in group work, because people are able to share knowledge, and can bring improvements to the development process.

• How autonomous are you when developing?

I always do a search on the internet or in books in the great library at my university. If I'm not successful, I seek to talk to someone in the community, by email or IRC.

• Do you like to discuss changes intensively and not start coding until you know what you want to do?
• Do you like to code a proof of concept to 'see how it turns out', modifying that and taking the risk of having work thrown away if it doesn't match what the project or original proponent had in mind?

I think it largely depends on the purpose of development, some jobs require more time for research and planning. However, I believe that in general the best way is to use a few days to talk intensely about the tasks and perform some working sketches, after that, I think it is interesting to encode some examples and keep adjusting them over time, I think it is more attractive for work as the GSOC!

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.

According to what I had discussed in previous questions, I am really very interested in developing new GUI tools for working with graphics and / or assist in finalizing the GUI Octave. Within this proposal, I hope to focus primarily on what is most urgent for the community. I would like to have some feedback on it!

1. Finish_the_Octave_GUI [1]
2. Implement_a_Qt_widget_for_manipulating_plots [2]