code.edbaskerville.com

I have just written a GridSweeper proposal from the outline for Summer of Code that I’m about to submit to Google.

There’s no extended discussion section, which I think is fine. The additional information can make it into a more detailed specification document before I start writing code.

I received word from Google that I can submit a proposal to their “alternate” process not on May 1, but right now. So I’ve slightly revised the proposal outline, and will try to ship off an actual proposal to the Summer of Code people later today.

I did a little cleanup on the source code for LilyPad and put it into a public Subversion repository. The code is available for (really rudimentary) online viewing here.

I still haven’t implemented most of the things I was going to have implemented by now–other things (e.g., the Summer of Code proposal) have taken over, as they always seem to do. But there are a few changes since the last preview version:

• It’s building as a Universal Binary—full speed ahead on Intel Macs. This actually makes some sense now that LilyPond itself is Intel-native.
• Rudimentary proof-of-concept parenthesis matching. Doesn’t actually match LilyPond syntax quite right yet, but it’s a start.
• The elimination of any way to play MIDI. With the intention, of course, of rewriting it in CoreMIDI…but that hasn’t happened yet. So I’ve actually removed a feature.
• Now handling textedit:// URLs as LilyPond.app does. When you run LilyPad, it makes itself the default handler for those URLs.

One known bug off the top of my head: I’m using the python LilyPond script embedded in LilyPond.app, which likes to open up the file in Preview after it’s done being generated. This is beyond annoying.

If you haven’t heard of it, Summer of Code is a program started last year where Google pays students to work on open-source software projects. Last year, being out of school, I wasn’t eligible, but, now that I’m going back, I qualify.

I talked with Rick Riolo about getting UM CSCS signed up as a mentoring organization, so I might have the opportunity to work on some software relevant to the complex systems/agent-based modeling community. The most concrete, straightforward, and useful project we came up with was a general parameter sweep system that integrates with modern grid systems (Sun Grid Engine, Apple Xgrid, etc.).

Google denied the request for CSCS to be a mentoring organization (they used a rather odd first-come, first-served application process, and were out of spots), but it appears that I can still apply to Google as a mentoring organization and tell them I’d like someone else (Rick) to be the mentor.

Proposals from students can be submitted starting on May 1, so I have some time to think things through. Furthermore, I’d love any help from potential users out there in the ABM community.

I’ve written a draft outline of my proposal. I’d love your feedback on any and all of the following:

• would you use this?
• necessary features
• existing solutions and their successes/shortcomings
• comments on the proposal content/organization

Make hearty use of the Comments section!

Welcome to code.edbaskerville.com, where I’m going to keep a record of my software development efforts. The site will certainly be useful for me, since I’ll have a permanent (?) record of my progress on software projects, notes, etc., etc. I hope it will also be useful for people out there using the software: here they can give me ideas, suggestions criticisms, etc. Also, I’m going to be making a few projects open source, so this will be a home for those efforts as well.

I’m building this site using WordPress. Until I have some time to experiment with formatting, I’m just going to go with the default theme, which looks just fine.