Thanks for Christian Couder's comments. I realize that I should have a deeper understanding of this project. So I have tried related commands and read related documents. Improvement vs v2: 1. A re-designed plan. 2. Put section "Estimated Timeline" next to "Steps". 3. Add parts about works of Nsengiyumva Wilberforce. 4. Fix some spell mistakes. There seems no time left for a cycle of re-draft. Could I submit this proposal? Thanks for all comments. * Unify ref-filter formats with other pretty formats * Personal Information Full name: Zhang Yi E-mail: 18994118902@xxxxxxx Tel: (+86)18994118902 Education: Wuhan University of Technology (China) Major: Computer engineering Year: First-year postgraduate student Github: https://github.com/zhanyi22333 * Synopsis ** Motivation Git has different implements to format command output, which makes chaos and hinder improvement of code quality. Aim to unify the different implementations to format output for different commands, we want to transform pretty into ref-filter formatting logic. According to the present situation, I may need to add more ref-filter atoms to replace pretty. After all pretty atoms have corresponding atoms in ref-filter, we still need to reuse ref-filter in pretty. To promise the backward compatibility, it is better to translate a pretty formatting string to a ref-filter formatting string, then use ref-filter's functions to complete the formatting process. ** Previous Work - `git for-each-ref`, `git branch` and `git tag` formats into the ref-filter formats: done by Karthik Nayak (GSoC 2015) - `git cat-file` formats and the ref-filter formats: started by Olga Telezhnaya (Outreachy 2017-2018), continued by ZheNing Hu (GSoC 2021), but still not finished due to tricky performance issues. - ref-filter formats and pretty formats: tarted by Hariom Verma (GSoC 2020) continued a bit by Jaydeep Das. (GSoC 2022) Nsengiyumva Wilberforce continued to work on this during the time of Outreachy and after Outreachy with persistence. His work on the "signature" atom should be mostly over when the GSoC starts. (Outreachy 2022-2023) Here are links to their blogs or works. - Olga Telezhnaya: Here are Olga Telezhnaya's detailed and helpful blogs.[1] - ZheNing Hu: There are a lot of patches which are concluded in his final blog [2] - Hariom Verma: There are also a lot of patches which are concluded in his final blog [3] - Jaydeep Das: Patch: gpg-interface: add function for converting trust level to string [4] - Nsengiyumva Wilberforce:Patch: ref-filter: add new atom "signature" atom [5] ** What is left Since the work of "signature" atoms will be finished by Nsengiyumva Wilberforce, There may be some other atoms left for ref-filter formats and pretty formats. After I checked the documents of pretty and ref-filter, I found that the '%w' in pretty seems has no substitute in ref-filter. And the '%m' placeholder may also need a substitute. ** Steps 1. Try best to understand related code. It is necessary to understand the way ref-filter works. Since the work of adding signature atom by Nsengiyumva Wilberforce is strongly related and latest, I think I should pay great attention. What's more, I may need to understand how align atom works because '%w' has a range influence and it is better to have the power to control the scale of range with the help of "%end". 2. Add a file name which is a substitute for '%w'. The code should pass tests and has related documents. 3. Add a file name which is a substitute for '%m'. The code should pass tests and has related documents. 4. Recheck the correspondence between the atoms of pretty and ref-filter. There should be none left. 5. Work on reusing ref-filter logic in pretty, which looks like a huge project. I need to have a good understanding on previous works about what should and shouldn't. It seems a bit earlier for me to think about it. (Hope I can get to this step) ** Estimated Timeline The official GSOC code time starts from 05-29 to 08-28, which is 13 weeks. The period from 06-05 to 06~30 is near the end of the semester. There are many classes for me. So I guess I may not be productive during this period. I think it is a bit time-limited if I follow the official timeline. It seems necessary to do some work in advance. 1. Preparatory work: Period: 04-01 ~ 05-28 About 8 weeks Tasks: 1. Trying to understand the formatting logic behind pretty and ref-filter. 2. Make some trial changes to help understanding. 3. Understand the work of Nsengiyumva Wilberforce. 4. Figure out the way align atom works. 2. Add a new field name. Period: 05-29 ~ 07-07 (include inactive period) Week 1~6 6 weeks Tasks: Based on the preparatory work, write a new field name for 'w' placeholder in pretty. It should pass tests and be well-documented. Deliverables: A new field name for 'w' placeholder in pretty. Test scripts. Added documents. 3. Active code period 1 Period: 07-10 ~ 07-28 Week 7~9 3 weeks Tasks: Work on a new filed name to replace 'm' placeholder. Also it need to pass tests and be well-documented. Deliverables: A new field name for 'm' placeholder in pretty. Test scripts. Added documents. 4. Finishing touches Period: 07-31 ~ 08-26 Week 10~13 4 weeks Tasks: If the previous estimate is over-optimistic, it is time for fault-tolerant.In the best condition, I should finish the two new field names. After that, I will recheck the correspondence between the atoms of pretty and ref-filter. If all preparatory work is done, I will put effort on reusing ref-filter logic in pretty. * Benefits to Community I'm willing to stay around after the project. By that time, I will be in my second year without classes. And my tutor has an open mind about my request to involve in an open source project by now. Considering the subjective and objective conditions, I think there is a high possibility that I will stay around. Particularly, I wish to be a co-mentor if I have the ability. There may be some difficulties. But what I learn from my finite experience is that you should not refuse something positive just because of the difficulties in the mind. A fresh new job may be difficult, but it can show me the possibilities of the world, which means changing my mind. What's more, I tried to persuade a schoolmate who I think is kind of obsessed with technology to take part in an open source community for both self-growth and companion. And I failed, because he thinks it is hard. It's always hard to change Others' deep-rooted ideas by word. But I think the actions speak louder than words. Maybe after the project, I can change the minds of people around me about joining an open source community. There may be no visual benefits to the Git Community but should be beneficial to the whole open source community. * Microproject t9700: modernize test scripts [6] The microproject patches have been merged. The merge info is as below: commit 8760a2b3c63478e8766b7ff45d798bd1be47f52d Merge: a2d2b5229e 509d3f5103 Author: Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue Feb 28 16:38:47 2023 -0800 Merge branch 'zy/t9700-style' Test style fixes. * zy/t9700-style: t9700: modernize test scripts * Grasp from related work ** From Hariom Verma's blog Walking through the blogs of Hariom Verma, I find many things useful. *** Debugging An extremely informative(step-by-step) debugging guide by Christian. [7] *** 11 questions for understanding someone's work. [8] 1. What was the goal of each patch? 2. which approach did she took to achieve the goal? 3. what were the goals of the patch series? 4. which approach did she took to achieve the goals? 5. what was the goal of her previous patch series? 6. what was the general direction her patch series were going? 7. why did she took that direction? 8. are there ways to continue in the same direction? 9. are there ways to achieve similar goals? 10. how were her goals similar and different from the goals in my proposal? 11. is it possible to use the same approach? *** Else There are many details about his work progress. I can refer to them when I am in similar situations. ** From ZheNing Hu's blog *** Time analyzing Use performance testing tools to analyze the time-consuming steps of `git cat-file --batch`. Using Google's `gperftools`: 1. Add the link parameter `-lprofiler` in `config.mak`: `CFLAGS += -lprofiler`. 2. `make`. 3. Use `CPUPROFILE=/tmp/prof.out /<path>/git cat-file --batch-check --batch-all-objects` to run the git and general `prof.out`, which contains the results of performance analysis. 4. Use `pprof --text /<path>/git /tmp/prof.out` to display the result in the terminal. *** About Github CI "GitHub-Travis CI hints" in Documentation/SubmittingPatches *** Else He also writes his process of debugging and optimization in detail. It's worth deepening into when I need them. This proposal draft benefits from the works of predecessors much. Thanks. ** From Olga Telezhnaia's blog 1. There is potential emotional problems related to remote works. 2. It may be a good idea to try different ways of communication. 3. I should learn needed expertise. For example, I should learn more about shell scripts. 4. The plan may change from time to time. But I should talk about it with mentors every 2-3 weeks to focus on the final goal and middle steps. * Biograhical information It is always funny to recall that I first learned about Linux in a stimulated hacker game in my fresh year in college. After that, I tried to teach myself Linux and started to know open source projects. Overcome many difficulties and I finally know something shallow about Linux. As a side effect, I am more enthusiastic and better at programming compared with my schoolmates. But the period of stagnation came, I began to write some meaningless projects for school tasks and repeated myself without progress. The best out of the worst, I touched excellent open source software during the time, such as vim, emacs, visual studio code, Qt, VLC and, of course, git. Near the end of my junior year, I read an article about learning by contributing to an open source project by a geek in the community of emacs. Almost at the same time, I knew the GSOC and preferred to take part in git. But it was near the start date of my plan for postgraduate qualifying examination. So I just postponed the stuff for GSOC. Luckily, I passed the examination. After I got used to life as a postgraduate student, I felt the motivation to progress again. Then I tried to contribute for git. Now I just finished a micro project, which seems trivial. But it really let me have a deeper understanding of open source and free software and more motivation to contribute. I hope I can stay here a long time before being involved with other interesting projects since the quality is more important than the quantity. I know it seems a bit stubborn to believe that contributing will lead to progress, which is also influenced by my learning attitude. But without action, I can not verify the belief. Sooat least I will try to contribute for one year. After that, I hope I can have a better understanding. Sorry, the above text may be messing. In short, I will try to contribute for git for at least one year. * Closing remarks It seems blogs will help much for later work. I think It worth rebuilding my blog site on github. Thanks for Christian Couder's and Hariom Verma's help. [1] https://medium.com/@olyatelezhnaya [2] https://public-inbox.org/git/CAOLTT8SxHuH2EbiSwQX6pyJJs5KyVuKx6ZOPxpzWLH+Tbz5F+A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ [3] https://harry-hov.github.io/blogs/posts/the-final-report [4] https://public-inbox.org/git/pull.1281.git.1657202265048.gitgitgadget@xxxxxxxxx/ [5] https://public-inbox.org/git/pull.1452.git.1672102523902.gitgitgadget@xxxxxxxxx/#t [6] https://lore.kernel.org/git/20230222040745.1511205-1-18994118902@xxxxxxx/ [7] https://public-inbox.org/git/CAP8UFD3Bd4Af1XZ00VyuHnQs=MFrdUufKeePO1tyedWoReRjwQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ [8] https://harry-hov.github.io/blogs/posts/week1-the-ten-questions
