Re: [Gretl-devel] Several things
On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Talha Yalta wrote:
>> Google summer of code...
I am glad that Jack brought up this issue. Last year, I have
mentioned personally to Allin that applying to GSoC could be a
good idea. It was too late to do it so, I had offered that I
could help organizing this next (this) year. I haven't done this
before but I think what needs to be done is we have to determine
several potential projects that an interested CS student can
undertake over the summer. Then, we need to apply to Google with
a well written info on Gretl (and R if this is to be a joint
effort) along with the proposed projects.
Producing well-written proposals on _several_ potential projects
sounds daunting, but confining ourselves to the data importer
issue that Jack mentioned (perhaps plus one other) seems more
feasible.
In relation to your other project suggestions:
1)- Importing more statistical distributions to gretl using R's
stats-library... I think we can have lots of new statistical
distributions and their inverse functions if a student imported
some of the code or implemented the algorithms from R or some
other resource.
Agreed, this would be nice from our point of view, but I'm afraid
it sounds boring for the student (just re-coding).
2)- I remember that at one point Allin asked for help regarding
setting up a nicer and more detailed preferences menu where many
things that are adjustable only with the command line is
accessible from the GUI. I think a project involving this
together with maybe some other GUI improvements can be a good
idea.
You'd have to know gretl very well to do that; it's not a
"modular" task, which I think it the best thing for GSoC.
3)- Another one is improving the gnuplot integration so that
more and better looking graphs can be produced...
Sorry, but same comment as above.
4)- How about implementing or improving some simple statistical
functionality? Simple things are useful especially in a
classroom environment but their implementation can be delayed or
neglected because the resources are limited. How about improving
ANOVA for example?
I expect Andreas Rosenblad may have some suggestions on that
topic.
Once we decide on a list of potential projects, I can write a
detailed description for each of them. Then, maybe Allin or Jack
can help me refine them, which I can submit to Google
afterwards.
That's a handsome offer, thanks.
Allin.