[GSOC] Introduction and task proposal

[Daniel Pyrathon]

Hi,

My name is Daniel Pyrathon. I am currently a third year BSc student in Computer Science at the University of Plymouth.

I love programming and I have always been active in the Open Source community (especially Python). In the past years I have written lots of Python, Javascript, Ruby, Java, and I am currently using C++ for many university projects. I have attended the last 3 EuroPython conferences and I have been a staff member of the conference for the last 2 years.

I am currently looking for a way to contribute to Django. Working on Django would increase my knowledge of the framework as well as let me share my own experience.

Reading the ideas list I found 2 of them that are very interesting for me, and so the reason behind this post is not only to present myself but also to discuss their feasibility.

Formalizing the Meta object

This task is very challenging because it digs in the internals of Django. I feel that I could learn a lot from it because I am very committed to refactoring and write most of my code in TDD. I have also experience with backwards compatibility.

Do you have any resources (code) I should read to get up to date and to understand better how it is currently implemented?

Improved error reporting

The idea of making people’s lives better by improving error messages is fundamental. There would be a lot to discuss: what type of imports would we want to mask? I have read BetterErrorMessages and would be happy to get started soon. My idea behind this task would be to expand on this ticket: what would be great is to add a web console with live REPL support, similar to what Werkzeug debugger does. This could be a great starting point and would lead to a better use of Django.

Said this, I have to be very honest. I have never contributed to Django up till now and I want to hear your feedback on which proposal would suit me best. However I learn a lot through experience and I am attracted by new and challenging tasks.

Also, it would be nice if I could have some suggestions on what to read and if there are some specific parts of the code I should be directed to.

Please let me know,

Daniel Pyrathon

[Russell Keith-Magee]

Hi Daniel,

On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:48 PM, Daniel Pyrathon <pir...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

My name is Daniel Pyrathon. I am currently a third year BSc student in Computer Science at the University of Plymouth.

I love programming and I have always been active in the Open Source community (especially Python). In the past years I have written lots of Python, Javascript, Ruby, Java, and I am currently using C++ for many university projects. I have attended the last 3 EuroPython conferences and I have been a staff member of the conference for the last 2 years.

I am currently looking for a way to contribute to Django. Working on Django would increase my knowledge of the framework as well as let me share my own experience.

Reading the ideas list I found 2 of them that are very interesting for me, and so the reason behind this post is not only to present myself but also to discuss their feasibility.

Formalizing the Meta object

This task is very challenging because it digs in the internals of Django. I feel that I could learn a lot from it because I am very committed to refactoring and write most of my code in TDD. I have also experience with backwards compatibility.

Do you have any resources (code) I should read to get up to date and to understand better how it is currently implemented?

Unfortunately not; at least, not other than just trying to untangle the mess that is django/db/models/options.py and the things that depend on it (ModelForms and Admin in particular). This project really is the very model of untangling a ball of string. The reason it's listed as a potential project is specifically *because* there are no resources we can point you at.

If, after looking at the code, you feel it's a little "thin" for 12 weeks, one way to bulk it out is to build a proof of concept alternate implementation of Meta. Aside from the "it would be good to document this" aspect, the practical reason for wanting to formalise Meta is that it would allow people to build duck-typed implementations of Meta. If you can build an alternate implementation of the Meta interface, then you should be able to deploy your "duck" into a Django project and build a ModelForm, or browse it in Admin.

So, for example, you could build a wrapper around a NoSQL store, or around an LDAP or email store, that *looked* like a Django model from the outside. This means you could view your NoSQL data, or LDAP records, or emails in Admin without needing to go through a SQL database. 

The aim of proof of concept wouldn't be to commit something to Django's core - it would be to build an external, standalone proof-of-concept, demonstrating that your documentation was complete and correct. Depending on what backend you choose, it might turn into a fully viable project on it's own.

 

Improved error reporting

The idea of making people’s lives better by improving error messages is fundamental. There would be a lot to discuss: what type of imports would we want to mask? I have read BetterErrorMessages and would be happy to get started soon. My idea behind this task would be to expand on this ticket: what would be great is to add a web console with live REPL support, similar to what Werkzeug debugger does. This could be a great starting point and would lead to a better use of Django.

This is an interesting idea; however, I see two problems:

1) It would involve reinventing the wheel. Werkzeug exists, and does its job well; a GSoC project to "duplicate Werkzeug" doesn't strike me as a good use of GSoC resources. However, a project to integrate Werkzeug's live debugging capabilities into Django might be more viable.

2) Security implications. Unfortunately, more than one site has been launched with debug=True accidentally left on; all you need to do then is stimulate a server error, and you have REPL shell access to the server. This strikes me as a remarkably effective foot-gun :-) Before you get too involved in the implementation, I'd want to know the security issues have been locked down.

 

Said this, I have to be very honest. I have never contributed to Django up till now and I want to hear your feedback on which proposal would suit me best. However I learn a lot through experience and I am attracted by new and challenging tasks.

My suggestion would be that the Meta project is probably better suited to a newcomer. The Error reporting project is a little vague - it relies on someone having a bit of experience with Django to know when the errors that are being returned are unhelpful. A "green" Django user *could* do this, but they're going to spend a lot more time trying to find problems that need to be fixed. 

Approaching the project from the Werkzeug angle is an interesting idea, but you're not starting with a pre-blessed project -- your first step is to convince the core team that the idea is worth pursuing. Given the compressed timeframe for submitting applications, it might not be possible to get this blessing before your application is due.

 

Also, it would be nice if I could have some suggestions on what to read and if there are some specific parts of the code I should be directed to.

The best advice I can give is to dig in and get your hands dirty. Start small. Look for a little bug; preferably one that is tangentially related to your area of interest (try and fix a bug in ModelForms, for example). Every little bit of experience will help, and along the way, you'll get to know people in the development community, and Django's development process.

Best of luck with you GSoC application!

Yours,

Russ Magee %-)

[Daniel Pyrathon]

Hi Russel,

Sorry for getting back now (I did not have notifications set up!). Thank you very much for the suggestions, I will have a look at models/options.py right away.

Regards,

Daniel Pyrathon

[Daniel Pyrathon]

Hi all,

As promised, I have been working on the formalizing Meta task.

I apologize to not have posted in the last days, but I have come back with my proposal. I want to post this now to the community, in order to gain feedback and re-iterate.

Formalizing Meta

Enabling users to build custom stores that work well with Django

                    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yp2_skqkxyrc0egdRv6ofnRGCI9nmvxDFBkCXgy0Jwo/edit#

Kind regards,

Daniel

[Zach Borboa]

2) Security implications. Unfortunately, more than one site has been launched with debug=True accidentally left on; all you need to do then is stimulate a server error, and you have REPL shell access to the server. This strikes me as a remarkably effective foot-gun :-) Before you get too involved in the implementation, I'd want to know the security issues have been locked down.

Curious, how do you get REPL shell access to the server with DEBUG=True with a vanilla Django deployment?

[Aymeric Augustin]

On 19 mars 2014, at 06:27, Zach Borboa <zachb...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Curious, how do you get REPL shell access to the server with DEBUG=True with a vanilla Django deployment?

That part of the discussion was about adding the werkzeug interactive debugger to Django’s default error page.

--
Aymeric.

[Daniel Pyrathon]

Hi!

Thanks for all the comments yesterday. They really helped me make the proposal stronger.

I have changed to proposal to reflect the changes. Would anyone like to have a look and, possibly, comment more?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yp2_skqkxyrc0egdRv6ofnRGCI9nmvxDFBkCXgy0Jwo/edit#heading=h.wyxx4xxijubt

Thanks,

Dan

[Russell Keith-Magee]

For the benefit of those reading along at home; I gave some revised notes and had a conversation with Daniel on IRC a couple of hours ago.

Yours,

Russ Magee %-)

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[Daniel Pyrathon]

Hi all,

It's been a while since I submitted my GSOC proposal. Although I am currently under exams, is there anything you would recommend me to do at this point (other than hope that my proposal is successful)?

Thanks,

Daniel Pyrathon

[Russell Keith-Magee]

Hi Daniel,

Nope - other than "cross your fingers" that your proposal is accepted :-)

But seriously…

If you haven't already, I'd suggest reading Django's contribution docs, and getting your development environment set up. Make sure you can run Django's test suite. If you're particularly enthused, try your hand at working on a patch for an open ticket so you can get used to the toolchain and the review process. That way you'll be up to speed with Django's development process, so when the GSoC period starts, you'll be comfortable with our basic process, so you'll just have to deal with the actual GSoC work.

Yours,

Russ Magee %-)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/django-developers/ad5d6016-2c6a-45b4-91c8-0e4500befc74%40googlegroups.com.

[Josh Smeaton]

If you haven't already got all your databases installed on your development machine, I *highly* recommend checking out https://github.com/jphalip/djangocore-box. It's a vagrant VM environment that already has MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite installed (plus most GIS installations), along with various versions of python. Unfortunately it doesn't have Oracle - but being able to run tests on 3/4 databases is especially handy.

Josh

[Daniel Pyrathon]

Hi Josh,

Sorry for getting back now. I have just finished my exam session, so I will be trying out the djangocore-box VM.

Regards,

Daniel Pyrathon