GSoC 2011

Projects

The GSoC projects for 2011 are:

We are also working on a twitter list for those involved this year. If you are missing, please send us your info:

What is GSoC?

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. We have worked with several open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund several projects over a three month period. Since its inception in 2005, the program has brought together over 4,500 students and more than more than 4,000 mentors & co-mentors from over 85 countries worldwide, all for the love of code. Through Google Summer of Code, accepted student applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development scenarios and the opportunity for employment in areas related to their academic pursuits. In turn, the participating projects are able to more easily identify and bring in new developers. Best of all, more source code is created and released for the use and benefit of all.

PostgreSQL has an official summer of code page: http://www.postgresql.org/developer/summerofcode.html

We also have a Ukraine translation: http://webhostinggeeks.com/science/project-postgresql-ua

Advice for Students

We have developed the following Advice for Students page to get you started.

Also, students who discuss their proposals with Postgres project members *before* the application deadline are much more likely to be successful.

Mailing list for student questions

For GSoC program questions and discussion, please subscribe to:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-students/

We can have non-code related discussions on this list, and help answer questions about proposal writing.

Discussion of code should be done on the list for the specific project a student is working on. For 2011, we have representatives from pgAdmin, phpPgAdmin, pgpool-II, PostgreSQL core, and a few other related projects.

IRC

We have an IRC channel at #postgresql and you are welcome to answer questions. Our GSoC Admins are: selenamarie, agliodbs and xzilla. Do not DM them without asking first!

You are welcome to ping any of us in the channel, or ask the channel general questions about a proposal. If you do not find help in the channel, feel free to send an email to pgsql-students@postgresql.org for help.

Proposal Format

Students are responsible for writing a proposal and submitting it to Google before the application deadline. The following outline was adapted from the Perl Foundation open source proposal HOWTO. A strong proposal will include:

Project Title
Name of proposer and email
Synopsis
Benefits to the PostgreSQL Community
Quantifiable results
Project Details
Inch-stones (project broken into small, distinct chunks)
Project Schedule
Completeness Criteria
Bio
- Blog
- Github
- @Twitter

Project Ideas

Add support for multi-line GUCs (configuration variables)
Add ability to control CSV log fields and order and allow CSV log format changes on SIGHUP
Eliminate 1GB memory allocation limit for individual queries (MaxAllocSize and friends)
Build SELinux demonstration for addressing PCI compliance
Bulk insert for GiST
Improve the auto-configuration script (Python or Perl)
Write Foreign Data Wrappers for several external data sources (ODBC, SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, CouchDB, Redis, etc.)
Integrate SQL/MED and PL/Proxy
Refactor the NewSysViews project to integrate it with information_schema for inclusion in core PostgreSQL.
Create autotuning utilities for automated interaction with system information and/or logs
Help finish the JSON data type
PL/Erlang
Unlogged Sequences
Please add ideas here!

More ideas:

Core Source Code

TODO Items: A number of the items on our TODO list have been marked as good projects for beginners who are new to the PostgreSQL code. Items on this list have the advantage of already having general community agreement that the feature is desireable. These items should also have some general discussion available in the mailing list archives to help get you started. You can find these items on the TODO list, they will be marked with an [E].
DDL Functions: Create a SQL-callable function capable of generating DDL scripts for objects within the database.
EXPLAIN Enhancements: Add information to EXPLAIN documenting I/O activity, discarded plans, costing detail, memory usage and more.
Text-Array Indexing: Add support for indexing text or multi-typed array data, capable of supporting indexed queries, similar to intarray.

Infrastructure

Enhance Buildfarm to test external packages, patches, or performance: The PostgreSQL project maintains a public buildfarm that continuously communicates with several machines that checkout and build the PostgreSQL source on a regular basis. The idea behind this project is to extend the current buildfarm code to allow it download external modules and report back on their build status, to download unapplied patches and test them, or to run performance tests.
Enhance "Performance-Farm" framework for continuous performance regression testing: Similar to the buildfarm, the idea behind this project is to create a public infrastructure that continuously communicates with several machines that checkout and build the PostgreSQL source on a regular basis, running and reporting on agreed performance benchmarks.
Finish the AOX integration for archives (see http://archives.beccati.org/ which has been done in PHP, has to be redone in django to integrate into the architecture)

External Applications

pgAdmin III / phpPgAdmin Enhancements: PostgreSQL supports a number of popular GUI Tools that are not distributed with the core project. Projects like these often have their own TODO lists and compatibility issues with the core PotgreSQL that need development. We welcome ideas for these projects as well.
pgAdmin III : add graph support to the server status window, add more ways to view an explain analyze in the query tool (and handle xml explain)
Procedural Language Improvements: PostgreSQL provides support for more than a dozen different procedural languages, however the level of support varies depending on the language implementation. Enhancing support of these procedural languages might include fixing build issues, adding SPI support, adding trigger support, adding support for IN/OUT parameters and more.
Replication and Clustering: PostgreSQL provides a wide range of replication solutions for varying types of replication needs. Many of these projects need assistance with building against different versions of PostgreSQL, installation and setup, administrative tools, and general bugfixing.
Teaching & Learning Tools: External tools to help in teaching the internals of PostgreSQL such as enhanced visual EXPLAIN, graphical models of the query engine, educational guides to the code, and interactive tools to demonstrate various query types.
PostGIS & GEOS: Add performance and feature enhancements to PostgreSQL's geographic data support.

Additional projects may be found by browsing the PostgreSQL Development Projects website.

phpPgAdmin ideas

support for PostgreSQL 9.1
switch PPA to UTF-8 only
implement a proper plugin architecture (but this project will already proposed by last year student Leonardo Augusto Sápiras)
graphical explain: kind of a merge between pgAdmin one and the excellent http://explain.depesz.com/. But to be honest, as I told to Leonardo, I would like to keep it for me
add support for multi-edit/delete/add data from tables
drop adodb keeping the compatibility. A lots of advantages here: remove dependency, ability to use some postgresql-only php function, lighter low-level db access layer, last but not least: ability to keep a full history of PPA queries
support for database/user/database+user/function specific configuration parameters
cleanup / improve xhtml code for better themes, accessibility and add some more theme

Plus, make sure to check our TODO and feature request pages:

Key Info

March 7th - 11th, Mentoring Application Due
March 29th - April 9th, Student Applications Due

Project Admins

Selena Deckelmann - Co-admin, Mentor Summit attendee.
Josh Berkus - Co-admin, Mentor Summit attendee.
Robert Treat - Past mentor 2x, co-admin, Mentor Summit attendee.

2011 Mentors

Dave Page - Former mentor - pgAdmin, Windows, Packaging, Infrastructure
Heikki Linnakangas - Postgres Committer
Magnus Hagander - Postgres Committer, Windows, pgAdmin
Guillaume Lelarge - pgAdmin
Jehan-Guillaume de Rorthais - phpPgAdmin
Joe Abbate - Python-related, catalog-related projects
David E. Wheeler - Perl-related, extensions, PGXN
Mark Wong - benchmarking, monitoring, performance
Tatsuo Ishii - Postgres Committer, pgpool-II
Stephen Frost - Postgres contributor
Devrim Gündüz - Administration related software (dashboard)
Kevin Grittner - SSI, TOAST, parser enhancements

additional reviewers

Josh Berkus - auto-configuration, performance testing
Selena Deckelmann - configuration, testing
Andreas Scherbaum - performance, configuration, testing

Past Success

Florian - read-only on snapshots, no advancement of xid on select statements
Ivan - Full-Text Support in phpPgAdmin
Mickael Deloison - pgScript engine for pgAdmin
Luis Alberto Ochoa Paz - Graphical query builder for pgAdmin
Leonardo Sapiras - browsing data through FK in phpPgAdmin + some additionnal stuffs

GOALS:

usable code
- useful/novel ideas
- research projects
longer term contributors

TODOs:

Kick-off Meeting for Community Members
Update GSOC page
Advertising?
Blog that we're participating and seeking students
Round of private emails to people who have participated in the past: Heikki, Simon, Mark
- request interest, and then follow up in asking about possible topics for students
Mentor recruitment and then email to -hackers
- do this much later when we have some proposals in?

Recruitment -- no organized group effort?
- -announce, -general, -hackers
- user group lists
- phppgadmin/pgadmin
- berkeley
- Univ. of Maryland -- contact them?

Identify the commitfest that the code will be submitted to

Expectations

Stuff to keep students together:
- Regular blogging from students
- weekly group IRC checkin? -- two checkin times maybe?

Have students communicate on -hackers where appropriate (didn't really work?)
- Or other relevant -devel lists

Mailing list
- pgsql-students (?) vs. -hackers (?) maybe up to mentor?
- mentors mailing list -admin mailing list, berkus said?
- students mailing list via gsoc