Google Summer of Code Ideas Page

This page contains some suggestions for projects that we think might be fun to do as part of the Google Summer of Code. Consider the project ideas more as an inspiration for things that are possible, not an exhaustive list of what we want. You should probably browse around our sites and see what we get up. Then you can come up with an idea that really excites you. Being excited about what you're doing is probably a good way to make sure that the project becomes a success.

You may want to browse around the some of the following sites to get a sense for what might catch your imagination:

• http://concurrency.cc/
• http://transterpreter.org/
• http://baseplate.org/ideas/
• http://projects.cs.kent.ac.uk/projects/kroc/trac/
• http://pop-users.org/wiki/

You can also post suggestions or ask questions on our mailing list: developers@concurrency.cc.

Project Ideas

Your Great Idea

• Possible Mentors:
  • Talk to us
• Description: Use imagination here
• Skills:
  • Lots
• Difficulty: Whatever you like

Go to TVM/occam compilation/translation

• Possible Mentors:
  • Matt
  • Christian
• Description: Google has recently released the Go language, a concurrent language with CSP like primitives. The language is in many ways like a modern implementation of occam. We are interested in using Go in the kinds of embedded settings that our virtual machine, the Transterpreter, already supports. This would require either compiling Go code to Transputer instructions or translating Go to occam.
• Skills:
  • Go
  • Occam
  • Familiarity with assembly and virtual machines
• Difficulty: Hard

Better GUI for the Transterpreter

• Possible Mentors:
  • Christian
  • Jon
• Description: The Transterpreter application that you can download from http://www.transterpreter.org/ is currently based around jEdit. While jEdit is a fine cross platform editor, we would prefer something simpler to make the tools more accessible to a wide audience. Look at the Arduino or Processing programming environments, which provide a much cleaner environment that is easy to get to grips with. While we would like to move in a direction which makes our development environment more accessible, we do not currently have a clear idea of how best to do this. As part of this project you would also have to do some research into how to best provide an easy to use, cross platform development environment.
• Skills:
  • Cross platform GUI programming
• Difficulty: Medium

RCX Port and Infrastructure

• Possible Mentors:
  • Jon
  • Christian
  • Matt
• Description: The Transterpreter has had a difficult relationship with the Lego RCX programmable brick. It was initially love at first sight, but there have since been many breakups and subsequent make ups. Currently some love is needed if the two are to be reconciled again. Doing this project would involve reviving the RCX port of the Transterpreter, including support for it in the Transterpreter Development Environment, and creating support material, possibly based on plumbing, and promoting its use amongst the many many people who already have an RCX.
• Skills:
  • Access to an RCX
  • Embedded programming in C
  • Patience
  • Love
• Difficulty: Easy to medium

Translating the plinker into Python

• Possible Mentors:
  • Christian
• Description: Part of the toolchain for compiling occam programs to bytecode that can be executed by the Transterpreter Virtual Machine consists of a Perl program which sanitises and links the output from the occam compiler. This program is called the plinker, where the p stands for Perl. We would like to rename the tool to be called the plinker where the p stands for, say, Python instead. The reason for the conversion is that we are trying to rely mostly on Python in our toolchain, and because the majority of the project members do not wish to support a Perl implementation of the linker functionality.
• Skills:
  • Perl
  • Python
  • Maybe some familiarity with translators would be useful
• Difficulty: Easy to medium