Thread: Applying GSoc prosgres and do contribution

Hi,
My name is Huang Qi Victor. I am currently a year 3 computer science student from Singapore.
I chose database as my specialization and currently I'm taking a database implementation course that has assignments in postgres. After doing the assignments, I have some interest in continuing learning postgres as an open source project and do some contribution. But I don't know how to start yet. So could anyone give me some guide?
Besides, I'm curious whether it's possible that I take the Gsoc as a starting point. I know the deadline of submitting propose is near and it's hard to learn the idea and write report, but I want to know whether it's still possible.

--
Best Regards
Huang Qi Victor

Hi Victor,
 I happen to be in your class and will be applying for GSoC and I think its still possible.
Regards,
Shiv

Is it required that I could not choose idea in the todo labeled E?




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Best Regards
Huang Qi Victor

Hi!

On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 3:31 AM, HuangQi <huangqiyx@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is it required that I could not choose idea in the todo labeled E?

You may choose a TODO item labeled 'E'.

There are also some projects listed on our wiki page that you could
ask more questions about:

http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/GSoC_2011

-selena


--
http://chesnok.com

Hi,

I was looking at the Finish JSON data type work, but as I check the achieved mail. It seems it already has 4 proposals. So I don't know whether it still needs help.
And I'm interested in the Improve the auto-configuration script (Python or Perl). But I don't know much about Python or Perl yet. How could I get the further idea of what this auto-configuration script is about?





--
Best Regards
Huang Qi Victor

On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 8:13 AM, HuangQi <huangqiyx@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was looking at the Finish JSON data type work, but as I check the achieved
> mail. It seems it already has 4 proposals. So I don't know whether it still
> needs help.
> And I'm interested in the Improve the auto-configuration script (Python or
> Perl). But I don't know much about Python or Perl yet. How could I get the
> further idea of what this auto-configuration script is about?

Here's the source code:

https://github.com/gregs1104/pgtune

Have a look at that. I am not sure what the current list of TODOs is
for it, but if you could have a look and come up with a few on your
own, that would be very helpful.

-selena


--
http://chesnok.com

Hi,

Am 05.04.2011 17:13, schrieb HuangQi:
>
> And I'm interested in the Improve the auto-configuration script (Python
> or Perl). But I don't know much about Python or Perl yet. How could I
> get the further idea of what this auto-configuration script is about?

Well, the idea behind this script is to auto-tune some of the
postgresql.conf settings based on the actual hardware and of course
based on the expected workload.

There are two different jobs to do:

- Determine the current hardware confiuguration (number and speed of
cpu's, ram size, i/o, number of disks, network, ...)
- Ask the user - or even better, trace the database - about the expected
workload (reads, writes, mixed workload, oltp, data warehouse, number of
concurrent connections and queries, used ram for queries and cache, and
so on)


I think, Perl or Python is a choice of the author, whatever he knows
best. Of course, it would be helpful, if such a script (or collection of
scripts) would use the same scripting language than all the current
scripts in the PostgreSQL source.


Hope, this helps

--
                Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group
European PostgreSQL User Group - Board of Directors
Volunteer Regional Contact, Germany - PostgreSQL Project

On 04/05/2011 11:23 AM, Selena Deckelmann wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 8:13 AM, HuangQi<huangqiyx@gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was looking at the Finish JSON data type work, but as I check the achieved
>> mail. It seems it already has 4 proposals. So I don't know whether it still
>> needs help.
>> And I'm interested in the Improve the auto-configuration script (Python or
>> Perl). But I don't know much about Python or Perl yet. How could I get the
>> further idea of what this auto-configuration script is about?
>>
> Here's the source code:
>
> https://github.com/gregs1104/pgtune
>
> Have a look at that. I am not sure what the current list of TODOs is
> for it

Documented in https://github.com/gregs1104/pgtune/blob/master/TODO ; a
little cryptic, but in several cases the relevant code has comments
about the details too.  It's in Python because all previous attempts to
do this were in Perl and never got to where they worked.  I'm not going
to claim those two facts are correlated, but now that pgtune is shipping
in Debian I have some satisfaction that I didn't make a completely wrong
choice.

The remaining work is all easy, but extremely boring and provides little
satisfaction for the time spent on it.  Completely feasible for a
student project, perfect way to get your hands dirty doing what real
development requires.  But since it's not the sort of sexy auto-tuning
work people think it is I don't expect to ever get anyone interested in
it.  What's left is boring old-people coding; I did all the fun stuff
already.

--
Greg Smith   2ndQuadrant US    greg@2ndQuadrant.com   Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services, and 24x7 Support  www.2ndQuadrant.us
"PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance": http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/books

Hey Greg,