[SoC] Proposal to port development tools to the OmniBrowser framework

[andrew morton]

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 at 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.