User:Adrolt

Public application template

This part is answered in public on your user page. Please copy its source (edit) and then fill. Delete any examples and annotations (this markup) afterwards. Same for questions that do not apply to your situation.

A: An introduction

• Please describe yourself in three sentences, one of them regarding your current studies.
• I am Romanian and I study in my home-city, at Politehnica University of Bucharest. I am interested in Computer Science and Mathematics, especially appling Mathematical ideas in computer software. I consider myself to be hard working and to have a good analithical sense.
  • Which languages do you speak?
  • I speak Romanian (native), English (very good), French (average).
  • What's your overall background?
  • I study Computer Science at Politehnica University of Bucharest but I also have a strong background in Mathematics because I participated in many mathematical competitions during my university and high school years.
• Why do you want to participate in the Google Summer of Code? What do you hope to gain by doing so?
  • Please also describe your previous experience with the GSoC, if any.
  • I had no previous experience with GSoC or Esa SoC.
• Why are you choosing Octave?
• First of all, I am interested in mathematical related software developing. Then, I used Octave in my first year of study and I am familiar with it.

C: Contact

• Please state the (unique and identical where possible) nick you use on IRC and any other communication channel related to Octave.
• adrolt
• Which time zone do you live in? Will that change over GSoC duration? Perhaps DST adjustment or a relocation. Note that both UTC and GMT are not aware of daylight saving time! Please state UTC+x or -x.

UTC + 2.00

• Please state the timeframe (in UTC+0) when you feel most comfortable working during GSoC. Where are your time buffers?
• From 8.00/10.00 to 20.00

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 worked in C++ and Octave in my first year at University. Then I used C++ for implementing certain data structures. Now I am much more familiar with object-oriented programming (Java is my main language) and I also used C++ in this purpose. Also, I used Octave in implementing some matrix factorisation or integration algorithms (LU, QR, Cholesky etc.) or other projects (e g Page Rank algorithm).
• Please describe your experience with other programming languages.
• Java is the programming language I used most but I also tried (and liked) Haskell, Scheme and Prolog. I used Java mainly for AI related algorithms and Haskell for language analizing, parsing phrases.
• Please describe your experience with being in a development team.
• I participated in a team project in artificial inteligence. The team was compused by 4 students and I was the team leader, working in the design of the algorithm used.
• 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.
• In the progect described above we had to design an AI for the game Obstacle Tron with random generated maps. We used Java to implement the algorithm and I developed my skill in both programming in Java, debugging and designing algorithms. I was the leader of my team and my role was to design the algorithm and to implement the related parts in Java wereas my team mates implemented the data structures needed.
• Please state the commits and patches you already contributed to Octave.

F: Feeling fine

• Please describe (in short) your experience with the following tools:
  • IRC and mailing lists
  • Haven't used IRC before.
  • Mercurial or other source code management systems
  • Nor Mercurial.
  • Mediawiki or other wiki software
  • Nor Mediawiki.
  • make, gcc, gdb or other development tools
  • Used them a lot.
• What will make you actively stay in our community after this GSoC is over?
• If my contributions will be usefull and you will be satisfied with my work I will have a sense of acomplishment that will motivate me in being active in the community.

O: Only out of interest

• Did you ever hear about Octave before?
• Yes and worked with it.
  • If so, when and where? How far have you been involved already?
  • Two years ago I used octave for the first time in the course of Numerical Methods at my university.
  • 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?

P: Prerequisites

• Please state the operating system you work with.
• Ubuntu Linux.
  • If you have access to more than one, please state them and the conditions under which you are granted this access.
• Please estimate an average time per day you will be able to access
  • an internet connection
  • 12h
  • a computer
  • 12h
  • a computer with your progressing work on
  • 12h
• Please describe the degree up to which you can install new software on computers you have access to.
• I can install any software is necessary.

S: Self-assessment

• Please describe how useful criticism looks from your point of view as committing student.
• Criticism is the key of evolving, getting better at what you do.
• 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 ussualy need to have a certain plan before starting any coding work.
  • Do you like to code a proof of concept to , 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 whould rather try to think at that concept without coding in order to find first a direction and then I may be able to experiment.

Y: Your task

• Did you select a task from our list of proposals and ideas?
• Yes.
  • 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 would like to improve the QR factorization function for sparse matrices. Octave uses Dulmage-Mendelsohn factorisation algorithm to break the problem in parts but in certain cases this approach is not efficient.
  • 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?
• Please provide a rough estimated timeline for your work on the task.
• In August, I whould think and design the steps I must do for the algorithm. In September, I would implement the algorithm. At the beginning of SEptember I may take a break. In October, I could make tests and debug the programm.