Re: Interest in GSoC 2021 Projects

Greetings!

* Yixin Shi (esing(at)umich(dot)edu) wrote:
> I am Yixin Shi, a junior student majoring in Computer Science at University
> of Michigan. I notice that the project ideas for GSoC 2021 have been posted
> on your webpage and I am quite interested in two of them. I really wish to
> take part in the project *Make plsample a more complete procedural language
> handler example (2021)* considering both my interest and ability. The
> potential mentor for this Project is *Mark Wong*. I am also interested in
> the project *Improve PostgreSQL Regression Test Coverage (2021)* and the
> potential mentor is *Andreas Scherbaum* and *Stephen Frost*.
>
> I would like to learn more about these two projects but failed to contact
> the mentors. How can I contact them? Also, I really hope to join the
> project. Are there any suggestions on application?

Glad to hear you're interested- I'm one of the mentors you mention.

You've found me, but I do want to point out that I'm also listed with my
email address at: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/GSoC ; the top-level
PostgreSQL GSoC page (I've also added a link to that from the GSoC 2021
project ideas page).

Note that PostgreSQL hasn't yet been formally accepted into the
GSoC 2021 program. Google has said they intend to announce the chosen
organizations on March 9th. Of course, you're welcome to start working
on your application even ahead of that date if you wish to do so.

Google provides a lot of useful information for prospective students
here: https://google.github.io/gsocguides/student/ including a lot of
information about how to write a solid proposal. For the regression
test coverage, the first step would be to review, as suggested in the
project idea, the current state of coverage which you can see here:
https://coverage.postgresql.org/ You'd also want to pull PG down and
make sure that you have an environment where you can build PG and run
the regression tests and build the coverage report yourself. With that
done, you can consider what areas you'd like to tackle, perhaps starting
out with some of the simpler cases such as extensions that maybe don't
have any test coverage today, or the various tools which have zero or
very little.

I've also CC'd Mark so he can provide some comments regarding plsample.

Thanks,

Stephen