Respected sir/ma'am, I, Saurabh Kumar, am a second year UG student in ?Department of Comp. Science at IIT Delhi, India and want to apply for GSOC. I am interested and would love to work on the following projects: ?-? QueryParser Reimplementation ?- ?Improve Spelling Correction I have worked on many programming projects and it makes me an eligible candidate for SOC. I have a experience of about 4 years in programming. I have programmed in C, C++, SML, OCaml, Haskell, JAVA, python, PHP, Currently I am doing a full course on programming languages where I have done projects on design of: a) a toy prolog interpreter ( using tools like Yacc and Lex) b) designing a tiny language as part of this course In fact I have worked on programming problems similar to both these projects. I would be grateful if you could provide me with further details on the above-mentioned project and help me in writing the proposal and comment on the chances of these projects being selected by Google. Thanking you Yours sincerely Saurabh Kumar IIT Delhi India
We're trying to keep GSoC traffic on xapian-devel, unless it is actively seeking feedback from the wider community of users. We're let them know they can subscribe to xapian-devel to follow the action, but this way they aren't forced to get all the email about GSoC. So I'm replying to xapian-devel - please keep replies there. On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 08:26:18PM +0530, saurabh kumar wrote:> I am interested and would love to work on the following projects: > > ?-? QueryParser Reimplementation > ?- ?Improve Spelling Correction > [...] > In fact I have worked on programming problems similar to both these projects.If you really have no preference, you brief summary of your experience sounds more in line with the QueryParser proposal, but don't be put off applying for the other if that appeals more.> I would be grateful if you could provide me with further details on > the above-mentioned project and help me in writing the proposalDid you read the linked to resource on the ideas page? These give you further details for each of the ideas. If you have any specific questions after reviewing that information, do let us know. There are links to resources for helping you write a good proposal here: http://trac.xapian.org/wiki/GSoCApplicationTemplate Once you have a reasonable version together, you can submit it in melange and we can comment on it. You can submit updated versions up until the submission deadline.> and comment on the chances of these projects being selected by Google.Google don't select the projects - they allocate us a number of slots and we choose that many proposals. We're really looking for compelling applications. If you submit an application we just can't turn down, then that's one we'll go for. Cheers, Olly
Respected sir I went through the specifications of " QueryParser Reimplementation" project. As I am currently doing a course on programming languages, so I understand the low level functioning of a parser. With the background I have in this field I am fully comfortable with this project. I have also went through the source code of the current parser implementation. I have some doubts : 1) Why is using the tools like yacc, bison not a good approach? Can you illustrate with an example? 2) In the proposed project are we NOT going to use any tools like YACC etc.? Meanwhile I am working on my proposal and plan to get my first draft ready within next 24 hours. Should I mail my proposal to the mailing list or just submit it at google SOC site? Because certainly I would require your comments to improve upon the first draft. Thanks Saurabh Kumar On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 12:36 PM, Olly Betts <olly at survex.com> wrote:> We're trying to keep GSoC traffic on xapian-devel, unless it is actively > seeking feedback from the wider community of users. We're let them know > they can subscribe to xapian-devel to follow the action, but this way > they aren't forced to get all the email about GSoC. > > So I'm replying to xapian-devel - please keep replies there. > > On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 08:26:18PM +0530, saurabh kumar wrote: > > I am interested and would love to work on the following projects: > > > > - QueryParser Reimplementation > > - Improve Spelling Correction > > [...] > > In fact I have worked on programming problems similar to both these > projects. > > If you really have no preference, you brief summary of your experience > sounds more in line with the QueryParser proposal, but don't be put > off applying for the other if that appeals more. > > > I would be grateful if you could provide me with further details on > > the above-mentioned project and help me in writing the proposal > > Did you read the linked to resource on the ideas page? These give you > further details for each of the ideas. If you have any specific > questions after reviewing that information, do let us know. > > There are links to resources for helping you write a good proposal > here: > > http://trac.xapian.org/wiki/GSoCApplicationTemplate > > Once you have a reasonable version together, you can submit it in > melange and we can comment on it. You can submit updated versions up > until the submission deadline. > > > and comment on the chances of these projects being selected by Google. > > Google don't select the projects - they allocate us a number of slots > and we choose that many proposals. > > We're really looking for compelling applications. If you submit an > application we just can't turn down, then that's one we'll go for. > > Cheers, > Olly >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.xapian.org/pipermail/xapian-devel/attachments/20110331/32b1eacb/attachment.html>
On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 01:30:30AM +0530, saurabh kumar wrote:> I have some doubts : > > 1) Why is using the tools like yacc, bison not a good approach? Can you > illustrate with an example?The parser needs to be forgiving, since the input is typed by (often non-technical) humans. The input isn't expected to be program code, and "Syntax Error" is rarely an acceptable response (better to correct the query and say "Searched for 'XXX' instead", with a "Did you mean 'YYY'?" is there's an alternative plausible fix up). Good error recovery in generated parsers is hard to do well, and usually results in adding extra rules to the parser description, and that obfuscates what we're actually trying to do. The grammar is also not something we can always restrain in ways to suit the parser generator. For a formally specified grammar (like a language standard perhaps), there's usually a BNF description of the grammar rules, so it's handy to have the parser description mirror it. That's not the case here. Currently the lexer does things like tracking the "mode", which is really an indication of where in the grammar we are.> 2) In the proposed project are we NOT going to use any tools like YACC etc.?Well, you're welcome to propose what you like, but you'll need to do a harder sell on this one. If you want to use a parser generator, we currently use lemon, which has a clearer syntax than bison/yacc, and is structured such that the lexer calls the parser (rather than the parser calling the lexer, as in bison/yacc). That allows the lexer to be simpler, since it doesn't need to "keep its place" with explicit state. So I'd suggest we probably don't want to move back to using bison (one reason we moved away originally was the lack of reentrancy in bison-generated parser, but that at least now seems to have been addressed).> Should I mail my proposal to the mailing list or just submit it at google > SOC site? Because certainly I would require your > comments to improve upon the first draft.Just submit it to the site - we can comment there and you can revise it up until the deadline (April 8th, 19:00 UTC). Cheers, Olly