Re: Project Suggestions
On Mon, 4 Jun 2001, Jeff Bailey wrote:
> It would be useful if you could provide more information about your
> capabilities and timeframe.
In terms of my capabilities, I do not have any experience hacking a
real-world OS (ie, I have never worked on Linux internals, etc) although I
have taken an OS class for my undergraduate and I have done some
commercial application programming for Linux. Basically, IMO I am a quick
learner and a good programmer; my learning curve is getting up to speed
with the actual internal implementation of *nix (I have read a book on
the design and imlementation of 4.4BSD, but looking at code is a
different story).
>
> What is your Masters project in? Do you have any systems design
> experience?
I am only just starting to plan my masters project. I am designing my
project and starting implementation this summer, working on the
implementation through the fall until next spring, and then writing my
thesis next summer.
As for system design experience, I have designed and implemented a
commercial application before (if that's what you mean) that ran on
Linux, solaris and windows.
> Also, I assume that by "1 week or less" you mean 40-60 hours worth of
> work. Is this your idea of 1 week? If not, please clarify.
>
Yes, about 40 hours of work would probably be perfect. I just need
something to get my hands dirty that will hopefully give me better
intuition for choosing a project.
> Lastly, where did you look for information first? It would be useful
> to post these answers somewhere that people look first. Jim has been
> putting together a rewrite of the Hurd web pages on the GNU servers,
> but I don't know if people go there first or not.
>
The first place I looked was the GNU page and secondly the sourceforge
page. Both were out of date and really had little more than a mission
statement and the HURD acronym meaning.
Specifically for ideas, the very first place I looked was this URL:
http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-devel-tasks
The problem is that it's difficult to determine what is not out of
date. For example, I looked into POSIX threads, and in this page, Mark
Kettenis is said to be working on them, whereas I found out later that
POSIX threads have changed hands at least twice since Mark worked on
them. At best this page is timestamped in May.
I've found the most reliable and up to date place for information is the
mailing list archives.
Tom
> > As for the advice, I'm looking for two suggestions:
> >
> > 1) I'm looking for a very short (ie, 1 week or less) programming project
> > to become acclimated to HURD development so that I can make an informed
> > decision as to what part of HURD to pursue for my thesis topic. Any
> > suggestions or would it suffice to look for something on the TODO pages
> > out there? Are they up to date? I think this question might help a lot
> > of people in a similar situation looking for a first coding step.
> >
> > 2) I'm also looking for suggestions for larger projects to take on
> > towards my masters thesis. This may be anything from a porting project
> > that might have interesting implications to the implementation of some as
> > yet unimplemented part of the system to a rewrite of some underdeveloped
> > part of the system. Hopefully this questions will also be helpful to
> > people other than me.
>
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