SoC proposal

[micha]

Hello,

I had to think a lot about if I should try to participate.
But since I really love coding opensource, I decided to give it a try.
And being sponsored would allow me to do some opensource work, which I most
likely won't be able otherwise, since I'm earning my life by programming for
a company.

I've got three proposals, I'll send them to the according mailing lists.


This proposal is about the snippets idea of kdevelop.
(
http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Summer_of_Code/2007/Ideas#Extend_KDevelop.27s_snippet_support
)

What I write here is not the official proposal, it's just a suggestion and
the question whether someone would like to be the mentor.
Besides it's mentioned in the idea, one should ask about the status of the
implementation in svn ?


I like the features listed there pretty much and would like to implement
them / work with the developer(s) who are on it.

However, I'd like to concentrate on the network sharing feature.

What I think of is the following:

The development of software has many patterns in common.
Some of the patterns and tasks are complex enough, so that there are
libraries for them.
But many, if not most, you have to solve on your own.

This way code is written again and again by different developers, which
basically does the same.
Although there are some snippets available on the net, it's very often
faster to write the code on your own than search for it, look it through,
look for the license,...

This could be solved by sharing your code snippets with other developers
over the world, and could also lead to better and faster development of
opensource, since your snippets would also be reviewed by others - I'm even
thinking of discussion about snippets, making the development more
interesting.
And there's the fact that in such a community people will join, who
contribute just for fun - Writing and discussing snippets in this case.

Functions I'd love to implement are:
Export snippets in a simple way.
Add author's and license information.
Export the documentation and a description.

Search for snippets by several criterias.
A Webinterface to the central server.

Rate or comment the snippets of other people.
Tag snippets of others with personal tags in order to find them later.
Get all comments and reviews to snippets you contributed on a single page.
Get notified, if snippets of you recieved new comments.

See where you used snippets in your own projects. ( e.g. if the snippet x
got the comment "Oh dear, every ten times this will segfault, because.." you
should be able to see where you used the snippet in your sources)
The option that changes to snippets should also change all locations in your
projects, where you used them.
See who is using your snippets.
Some sort of personal page (Who are you, how many snippets you contributed,
how they've been rated, the comments,..)

Some webpages about this project: E.g. the weekly digest, featured snippets,
..



I know that implementing something like this would be a huge task, but I'd
really love to do this.
And getting sponsored would allow me to spend several months just with
development, since I'm free until october.

I'm also thinking about google, since all of this is about information,
possibly they have some interest in it.

I'd start with a survey.
 I believe that there are many points, which I didn't thought of yet.
And all the information will need to be available in a way, that everyone is
able to find the snippets without browsing the codebase several hours.
There's also the design of the ui, doing later surveys again should improve
the usability.



Finally I'd like to add some notes about me:

I'm living in Nuremberg, Germany.
I started programming with 11 years, and was really fascinated.
Now I'm 27 years old, and still fascinated.
I've learned several programming languages in the years, but I'd say I love
cpp and perl.
I'm studying at the university Erlangen-Nuernberg a mixture (Magister) of
Philosophy, History and Psychology.
However, I'm  free until october this year, so I have plenty of time..


Best wishes,
Michael
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