Mandras

A: An introduction

• I'm András Mihálykó, from Hungary. I study mathematics at the Eötvös Loránd University, completing my BSc in 2015. I'm interested in graphs theory, graph algorithms, operational research. I speak english, german, and of course hungarian.
• I want to participate ESA Summer of Code in Space, because this summer I want to get to know how greater projects go, and if so, then it's better to do it with also doing some open-source, than programming by a company.
• I haven't participated SoC yet.
• I looked for some project, where I can use my mathematical skills. I've found some of them, but Octave was the one I've knew, and also it was the most interesting.

C: Contact

• Please state the (unique and identical where possible) nick you use on IRC and any other communication channel related to Octave. András Mihálykó
• Which time zone do you live in? Will that change over GSoC duration? UTC+1h during the whole summer
• Please state the timeframe (in UTC+0) when you feel most comfortable working during GSoC. Where are your time buffers? I usually code afternoon from 14:00 to 19:00 and after that from 20:00 up to midnight.

E: Coding experience

This part is one of the more important ones in your application. You are allowed to be as verbose as you want, as long as you stay on topic ;-)

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

I use C++ since the university, althought I've learned earlier, just I was satisfied with Delphi, so I didn't change. I've changed when I had to work in team, in the ACM competiton, and then stuck with C++. It's quite comfortable for my tasks, which recently are ProjectEuler, topcoder SRM-s, and CodeJams (not just Google). I like them, because they don't require much time - which I don't have during semesters-, although they're fun. I got familiar with the OO programming in C++, too. In the university I had several courses in C++, and I teach talented secondary school students for C++, by Morgan Stanley, too. I have used Octave just sometimes (it's not nesessary for mathematician), but my roommate uses it frequently - he studies physics.

• Please describe your experience with other programming languages. As I said I used Delphi for a long time, and have used Java, as well, for robotprogramming. Java with leJOS. At the university I've learned some more Java, and also Python, which I find really impressive, however I'm not really good at it yet.
• Please describe your experience with being in a development team. As I said have never worked in greater project yet, that's why I'd like to try it. With friends we had some projects, such chatprogram for classes, that cannot be located, or automatic snooker table (which terminated by the hardware part).
• 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 writing a program for LEGO NXT robot, that actually can be out of a maze, and also can gather information from the enviroment, send it out, and learn from the mistakes it made. That project was copmletely mine, I have built the robot, I wrote the whole program, I made the maze, too. The experiences were: don't use Java with robot! But if you do, you should write such a robostus code, that can correct the mistakes the leJOS motorcontroller makes. Also I've learned there, that on the internet there is help for so much programming questions. I use this knowledge since then.
• Please state the commits and patches you already contributed to Octave. I haven't done yet, and until end of April I won't have time for that.

F: Feeling fine

• Please describe (in short) your experience with the following tools:
  • IRC and mailing lists It was confusing, to get two users, and they are not connected.
  • Mercurial or other source code management systems -
  • Mediawiki or other wiki software Fine
  • make, gcc, gdb or other development tools I use g++, and pleased with it
• What will make you actively stay in our community after this GSoC is over? The project I apply for belongs to me, so I will follow it, develop it, of course after the SoCS. New project: I would join projects related with graph algorithms, as I know them pretty well, and can implement them.

O: Only out of interest

• Did you ever hear about Octave before?
  • If so, when and where? How far have you been involved already? My roommate uses it frequently, and also guys, who do chemistry in the college use it often. I haven't used, just tried it.
  • 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? What is the proper task to do with project. It would be nice, if after the first "abstract" we could go to a page, where the tast is better explained.

P: Prerequisites

• Please state the operating system you work with. I can use Ubuntu 13.10. If I get the ESA SoCS, then I'll afford a new laptop, so perhaps I would uprgade to newer Ubuntu distribution.
• Please estimate an average time per day you will be able to access
  • an internet connection
  • a computer
  • a computer with your progressing work on 24 hours
• Please describe the degree up to which you can install new software on computers you have access to. It's mine, I can install everything.

S: Self-assessment

• Please describe how useful criticism looks from your point of view as committing student. Critism is one of the greatest developers, next to applause.
• 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 always like to code considered things, so if I'm not sure about the task, or the goal, then intensively discussing is necessary.
  • 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? As I'm going to be a matematician I like things in systems, and considered. I met problems, that mainly need to be fully considered, so there were not too many fields, when I tried 'see how it turns out' concept. Of corse if my first approach isn't right, then I have to throw away it, and start again.

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. I have chosen the generalized eigenvalue problem. http://wiki.octave.org/GSoC_Project_Ideas#Suggested_projects, http://octave.1599824.n4.nabble.com/General-eigenvalue-problem-proposal-td4651990.html
  • If you apply for a task you have added yourself instead, please describe this task, its scope and people you already talked to concerning it. What field of tasks did you miss on the list? Here's what we talked about: http://octave.1599824.n4.nabble.com/ESA-SoC-Generalized-eigenvalue-td4669870.html#a4669892
• Please provide a rough estimated timeline for your work on the task. First of all I'll examine the codes, perhaps the LAPACK code, as well. It would be up to end of June. Next: I'll develope the functions according to the ML functions. I'll finish it up to the end of July. Next I'll examine the new dggeevx routin, and perhaps writing a routin which can decide whether to use the balancing or not. It will be until the end of August.