Re: GSoC 2012

On 22 March 2012 13:10, Maxim Smyatkin <smyatkinmaxim(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> I am Russian first year Master student. My specialization is Information
> Technologies and the subject of my Master's thesis will be related with
> DBMSs' internals. My experience in this direction consists of (ordered by
> date):
> - "The Relational DMBSs" (client side) and "The Modern DBMSs" courses at the
> University;
> - implementation of Firebird engine for GSQL project as the course project
> on the Relational DBMSs;
> - about 14 month worked at Red Soft Corp. as Red Database (Firebird's fork)
> core developer. During this period I was studying Firebird's Internals (read
> papers, learned the code, got 6-day master-class on this Subject by Dmitry
> Emanov - Firebird's lead developer), was involved in Red Database 2.5
> implementation (i have imported features from Red Database 2.0, fixed some
> bugs, done several little improvements and have implemented Group algorithm
> based on B+-Tree);
> - choosing the master degree subject within DBMS internals area and started
> studying it more detailed. Also I am getting right now "Architecture of
> DBMSs" course at the University based on Hellerstein and Stonebraker
> "Readings in Database Systems".
>
> Basing on my knowledge, I think I am able to implement FDW (particular for
> wrapping Firebird data). But, as I wrote before, I'm also strongly
> interested in DBMS internals. So, if there is any ideas, related with
> PostgreSQL's Core, I, probably, will like them even more.
> And one another question:) Many projects advise students to do some little
> patches to be accepted, but i have not found something about it in
> PostgreSQL GSoC 2012 page. I just missed it, or you have another criteria?
>
> Thank you!
> Smyatkin Maxim.

Hi Smyatkin,

We recommend to all students that project proposals aren't too
ambitious as it's often the case that the work involved is
underestimated, and there's a high risk of the project not reaching
completion. Students don't necessarily need to have provided small
patches for PostgreSQL in the past, although naturally it would show
that there would be a level of familiarity with the code base.

If you're interested in PostgreSQL internals, a good starting point
would be to look at the current TODO list on the wiki. The items
listed there link to previous discussions around the features and can
provide design proposals, technical issues and background information
for each feature: http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Todo

There are also suggestions available on the GSoC 2012 page on the
PostgreSQL wiki:
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/GSoC_2012#Project_Ideas

When you register for GSoC as a student, you may submit as many
proposals as you wish, and those will be reviewed by a committee to
determine which ones are worth implementing, have a good chance of
completion, and that a specific mentor is available for.

--
Thom