[gcompris-devel] GSoC project

[Bruno Coudoin]

Le mardi 29 mars 2011 à 18:25 +0300, Cristina Precup a écrit :
> Hello,
> 
> My name is Cristina Precup and I am interested in participating to the 
> development of the GCompris educational software.

Hi, thanks for your interest in GCompris.

> I am currently studying at the Babeș-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca University, in 
> Romania.
> I should mention that I do not know Python programming language but I 
> was glad to find out that your software activities are also developed 
> using the C programming language, which is one of the programming 
> languages that I have studied for several years.

Well python programming should not be considered as an issue for a 3
month project, its enough time to absorb its learning.

> Particularly, the following projects got my attention:
> - the Vocabulary trainer
> - the Text understanding
> - the Dictionary with word definitions
> - the Symmetrical drawing
> - the Interactive geometry
> However, I have some questions to ask regarding these projects:
> - regarding the Vocabulary trainer:
> 1. to clarify my image upon this project, will the user have the option 
> of setting the source and target languages for this separate activity?
> - regarding the Dictionary with word definitions:

Yes, one of the key point of GCompris is to provide a set of educational
activities for children all over the world, whetever their language or
culture. That's a goal, it is not necessarily easy and of course it
implies the involvement of translators to help us.

> 1. what are the prerequisites regarding the knowledge of XML files in 
> order to succeed the development of this dictionary?

XML files is a basic tool for many activities in software development.
We don't use them extensively but you have to understand what it is use
for and how to parse them.

> As I have understood so far, GCompris is based on the canvas widget 
> GooCanvas for GTK+.
> Can you please tell me what are the prerequisites that you think that 
> are needed for a student to be able to develop some of these projects. I 
> just want to make sure that I am doing the right thing and that nothing 
> slips me.

I selected the goocanvas approach because it is very easy to program
with. I still believe it is a valid choice to this regards. The API is
online and there are plenty of examples in GCompris, so just check for
yourself ...

Regards,

-- 
Bruno Coudoin
http://gcompris.net  Free educational software for kids
http://toulibre.org  Logiciel Libre à Toulouse
http://april.org     Promouvoir et défendre le Logiciel Libre