Project idea for GSoC page - Support for expressions in indexes

[akki]

Hi

This is in regards of this thread that was posted a few days back - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/django-developers/8qvrKfZaP2o

I think "extending support for expressions into indexes" would make a good candidate for the ideas page. This post by Josh mentions steps to be followed to accomplish this task in a nutshell (1st point had been completed in last year's GSoC). The ticket for the same is https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/26167.
For the complexity of this task I would suggest that it's between medium-hard as it requires good knowledge about how both expressions and class based indexes work in Django.

As far as mentoring the project is concerned I am currently not in a situation to state if I'll be free for the task after a couple of months so can't commit on that right now. I'll definitely help out the student with any queries if anyone does pick up this project this year.

[Josh Smeaton]

I think Markus is currently working on this idea, along with Ian Foote, who has contributed some precursor work to make the idea possible (deconstructed expressions). The current PR is https://github.com/django/django/pull/8056

[akki]

@Josh Absolutely correct. I meant since this involves a lot of things (a couple of them are listed by Markus on the ticket itself) to do, they can use a helping hand from a student developing full-time.

It's just a suggestion of mine, they are doing an incredible job and it's totally their call (they can mentor the project as well since they have already come so far with the ticket). :)

Other than that there are many more things related to indexes that are remaining like implementing a RenameIndex migration operation, making db_index use class based indexes under the hood (2nd point of the post mentioned in my last mail), deprecating index_together, bring indexes under inspectdb, etc. which the students can involve in there project. There are even more things to do related to db-indexes than these, checkout the tickets having "db-indexes" in their keywords for them.

This project can be thought more of getting "Django indexes into Spartan mode" than just "extending expressions into indexes" as I had called it earlier, as it would power Django to do much more with indexes via class based indexes. So if it looks good to the community this can be included in the ideas page of Django's GSoC page.

[Florian Apolloner]

On Saturday, March 4, 2017 at 6:52:01 AM UTC+1, akki wrote:

@Josh Absolutely correct. I meant since this involves a lot of things (a couple of them are listed by Markus on the ticket itself) to do, they can use a helping hand from a student developing full-time.

The GSoC program does not allow for something like that. If that would happen Markus and Ian would be required to put their hands down and do nothing basically.

[Tim Graham]

There is probably a summer's worth of work to do outside of the work that's already happening, so if you want to add something to the ideas page, that sounds good to me.

[akki]

First of all let's not call the work done by the 1000s of GSoC mentors every year "putting down hands and doing nothing".
Second of all, since Markus and Ian are actively working on this task and there is not requirement of more help to complete it, I (undoubtedly) take back this suggestion of mine.

Lastly, if there is no work going on by anybody on the other tickets that I mentioned earlier (2nd paragraph of my last mail), I think they can be added to the ideas page with everyone's consent.

[Florian Apolloner]

On Saturday, March 4, 2017 at 7:10:57 PM UTC+1, akki wrote:

First of all let's not call the work done by the 1000s of GSoC mentors every year "putting down hands and doing nothing".

I am pretty sure I did not say that, please don't put words into my mouth. That said, the fact remains that we have to be careful with GSoC since students are required to more or less work alone in their area. This has been an issue in the past for us (iirc) because the mentors should really be like mentors and not "colleagues" with the same workload in the same area.

Cheers,
Florian

[akki]

On Sunday, 5 March 2017 01:53:28 UTC+5:30, Florian Apolloner wrote:

On Saturday, March 4, 2017 at 7:10:57 PM UTC+1, akki wrote:

First of all let's not call the work done by the 1000s of GSoC mentors every year "putting down hands and doing nothing".

I am pretty sure I did not say that

Thanks!

What do you think about the other tasks? Is it all right to include them on the page?

[Florian Apolloner]

Sure, I think including them is fine. All I wanted to say is that we might (or might not) have to be careful about accepting a few. But either way, that is something to think about when it comes so far -- if there is a strong proposal we can certainly find a way to make it happen.