[Kde-games-devel] Re: GSoC and Knights

[Miha Čančula]

2011/3/15 Parker Coates <parker.coates at kdemail.net>

> On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 16:50, Miha Čančula wrote:
> > Hello!
> >
> > As you might know, I'm the author of the KDE4 version of Knights. The
> > program has just released a stable 2.3 version with enough features for
> > general use, but there are still things missing. I posted a GSoC idea on
> the
> > Techbase page and got some responses from students. I have another idea
> in
> > mind, but I won't publish it on the techbase if there's no reason to.
> >
> > Unfortunately, I myself am still a student, and I would like to
> participate
> > in the summer of code program as well. I can't be both a student and a
> > mentor at the same time, and considering that I could use some extra
> money,
> > I'd rather be a student. However, I've never participated in GSoC (but I
> > have in SoK), so I can't say if I'll be accepted or not. This brings us
> to a
> > dilemma, and I'd like some things cleared first.
>
> I'm guessing that getting a GSoC placement in your own project with an
> outside mentor isn't really allowed?
>
I hope so, I certainly don't plan on sending a proposal for my own project,
if that's what you mean.

>
> > 1. Would a proposal for Knights be accepted at all? I know that you're
> > reluctant to accept proposals for new games, but this project would not
> be a
> > new game. Then again, it's part of extragear and not the kde-games
> module,
> > and as the first game there, I have no idea what the situation is like.
>
> Although Knights may not technically be in the KDEGames module, it is
> definitely a KDE application and a member of the KDE community. I
> don't see any reason why it wouldn't be accepted, but it might be
> worth confirming with the KDE GSoC folks. After all, Amarok is /only/
> an extragear app and it gets plenty of GSoC attention. ;)
>
> > 2. In the event that I get accepted as a student (for something else, but
> > still KDE) would anyone be prepared to take over mentorship for Knights?
> It
> > uses the KDE technologies as much as possible, so there shouldn't be any
> > unknown code in it. The code base isn't large, and I tried to document
> its
> > design, but if there are any questions about the code I'll try my best to
> > answer.
>
> The first part of the task (saving games to file) is quite straight
> forward and could easily be mentored by anyone with basic Qt
> development experience. The second (and in my estimation, much larger)
> part, however, I think requires quite a bit of high-level chess
> knowledge. As a non-chess-player, I really don't know why one would
> want to analyse a set of positions and how one would best do so. I
> think this would severely limit my ability to mentor the development
> of such a UI, so I think you'll need a mentor with more chess
> experience.
>
Well, unfortunately I don't know much about chess and its players either.
And I think you're right, there should be someone involved that knows what's
to be done. So I suppose it's not the best idea for this year

>
> Parker
>
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