Any final comments on this proposal would be much appreciated.
Thanks, andrew
Port development tools to the OmniBrowser framework Application for Summer of Code 2007 Andrew Morton drewish@katherinehouse.com http://drewish.com/
Synopsis I'm interesting in working on Andrew Black's proposal to re-implement IDE tools within the OmniBrowser framework (http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/5945). Being a fan of agile development techniques like test driven development and refactoring tools, I would like to focus on adding support for running unit tests and the refactoring engine to the OmniBrowser.
Project Squeak is blessed with a large number of interesting development tools, however, that mean it is also cursed by a proliferation of incompatible, single-feature browsers. One possible way to rectify this situation is by moving the tools to a common framework where all the browsers can benefit from shared tools. The OmniBrowser provides such a platform and by porting existing tools to it, it could be made into a more usable development environment and hasten the demise of the single-feature browser.
The project will be developed in three phases. The first phase will be porting the SUnit test runner to the OmniBrowser framework. I will maintain the features of the original and copy the majority of its current interface. The only changes I envision are dropping the "Run Profiled" feature and displaying the tests in a single column grouped by success or failure.
In the second phase, I will add support for the Refactoring Engine to the OmniBrowser. The OmniBrower has extensive support for Actions that can be shared between different part of its interface. My goal will be to create Actions for the various class, class variable and method refactorings.
The third phase is a more open-ended and designed to make use of any remaining time. The OmniBrowser collects a great deal of information on classes and methods to provide the senders and implementors browsers. I believe this information, in conjunction with the change notifications provided by the Announcements framework would make it possible to determine dependency and selectively run tests referencing changed classes and methods.
Schedule May 28 * Begin coding by migrating the SUnit test runner * Create OBTestCaseNode class to represent test cases * Create a OBTestNode class to represent individual tests * Add a #testBrowser method to OBMetagraph to provide a test metagraph June 11th * Add a OBTestCaseFilter to find test cases (isKindOf: TestCase for SUnit or using the spec category for SSpec) * Create an OBTestCategoryActor to provide actions for running a category of test case * Create an OBTestCase Actor to provide actions for a single test case * Create an OBTestCollectionDefinition to render a graphical view of running tests June 25th * Begin adding support for the refactoring engine * Determine the best way to introduce the refactoring actions July 9th * Upload code for mid-term evaluation * Add method refactoring actions July 23rd * Add class refactoring actions Aug 6th * Any remaining time spent working on improving the test browser Aug 20th * Upload code for final evaluation
Benefit for Squeak The Squeak community could benefit greatly from an end to the proliferation of single-feature browsers. Migrating tools into the framework will help locate limitations in the current structure and provide momentum to centralize on a single browser.
Biography I am in my senior year studying Computer Science at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. I have been working with open source PHP projects for over four years and have recently begun to explore Squeak and Smalltalk. I was introduced to Squeak in Andrew Black's Advanced object oriented programming class. Although I had never used a pure-OO language before then, the simplicity of the syntax and the idea that everything is a just a message sent to an object made it very easy to pick up. I am looking forward to gaining additional experience coding in Smalltalk and building more advanced programs.
My first open source effort was born out of a desire to learn about PHP 5's object oriented features; it resulted in a project called Phlickr which is a Flickr API kit for PHP 5. With Rob Kunkle, I co-authored Building Flickr Applications with PHP (http://apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10079) published by Apress. This book covers using Phlickr as a tool for building websites and scripts to manage photos on Flickr.
A year and a half ago I became actively involved with Drupal, a content management system written in PHP, while working as the web administrator at KPSU (Portland State University's college radio station). (http://drupal.org/user/34869) I wrote the Station module (http://drupal.org/project/station) which is used by many college, community and commercial radio stations to display their programs, play lists and weekly schedule. I re-wrote and now maintain the Audio module (http://drupal.org/project/audio), which is used at KPSU to provide an archive of all shows broadcast over our web stream. I also wrote the Flickr module (http://drupal.org/project/flickr) and recently have become a maintainer of the Image module (http://drupal.org/project/image).
Working with the Drupal developer community has been an excellent introduction to the dynamics of an open source project. It taught me the need to communicate with others to convince them that a solution is the best one and should be adopted by the community.