I wouldn't claim to speak for Django GSoC mentors and what they will accept, but I can say that the "Improve Django's code/error handling" projects have been perennial on Django's Recommended Project list for a while now, I think without any successful proposals (though "Improve Django's security" is philosophically somewhat similar and that *did* get accepted and worked on last year).
I think the problem is that it's super hard to write a proposal in this area that gets Django people nodding and saying "Yeah, this sounds really helpful, it's definitely something we should look at." Of course a lot of people are interesting in Django's code getting better over time, but people are resistant to lots of little refactorings with no external benefit, because it's usually not clear up front that the internal benefit will be enormous and any code changes introduce the possibility of new bugs or flaws. Best, Alex Ogier On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 4:42 PM, Damian Skrodzki <damien...@gmail.com>wrote: > And how would you rate the chances that these projects will be selected > for GSoC? Or which of all proposed projects have the most priority to you? > I'd be very happy to join Django community and have chance to improving > code quality (not only adding new features) would also be great. > > > On Tuesday, April 16, 2013 1:04:12 AM UTC+2, Russell Keith-Magee wrote: > >> >> Yes - I was referring to error reporting. Although the same would be true >> for 'best practices'. >> >> Yours, >> Russ Magee %-) >> >> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 3:22 PM, Damian Skrodzki <dami...@gmail.com>wrote: >> >>> Thanks for the answer. >>> >>> Just to be sure. As "Take the first project" you mean "2. Improved >>> error reporting", correct? I wrote the whole post in reversed order which >>> could confuse you. >>> >>> On Monday, April 15, 2013 2:18:56 AM UTC+2, Russell Keith-Magee wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 7:51 AM, Damian Skrodzki <dami...@gmail.com>wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hi, >>>>> >>>>> After looking through proposed ideas for the current GSoC i found 2 >>>>> issues related close to the code quality which I'm interested in. These >>>>> are: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 1. Best practices Updates >>>>> 2. Improved error reporting >>>>> >>>>> Both tasks are a different but they are very closely related just to >>>>> code quality which if very important especially in projects in size of >>>>> Django ;). I will try to suggest that maybe merging them into one little >>>>> bigger task would be better idea. I'll explainin characteristics of these. >>>>> >>>>> Take the second one as a first. This project will require trying to >>>>> reproduce some bugs and fix some error handling in order to allow other >>>>> developers to fix their bugs more easily. I think that trying to analyse >>>>> code, predict all scenarios and write all expected messages seems like >>>>> impossible task. It's better to fix tasks already reported by users. So >>>>> here comes the list https://code.**djangoprojec**t.com/wiki/** >>>>> BetterErrorMessages<https://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/BetterErrorMessages> >>>>> **. **Unfortunately (or rather fortunately) I found many of the >>>>> issues from "error handling" are outdated. On the other side it would be >>>>> good to review that list and possibly fix that wrong messages but ... do >>>>> you think that fixing few error handlers is enough for 2-month project? >>>>> >>>>> The first one will require to know best practices and then >>>>> rewrite/update some code to follow them. I think that this could >>>>> be continuous task, and the finish of this task if very blurred. Common >>>>> sense tells me that we should start with refactoring from "the worst" code >>>>> then current worst and keep doing until all project will be up to current >>>>> best practices. When the big project is being developed constantly there >>>>> always be some code that need refactoring. >>>>> >>>>> My idea would be to fix issues from bad "error messages list" which is >>>>> definitely achievable and then start to refactoring few functionalities of >>>>> Django that very needs it. To make the second part more achievable and >>>>> precise, I should choose few particular functionalities the I'd like to >>>>> take care of. This approach will allow to fix particular bugs reported by >>>>> users. Moreover fixing simpler bugs is usually easier to start with >>>>> project. Then having bigger knowledge i could refactor some code. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Do you think that it's reachable to do that in described way? >>>>> Or maybe better stick to the idea of taking just 1 of this projects >>>>> and spend some more time on it? >>>>> >>>> >>>> I think that if you do a detailed analysis, you'll find that *both* >>>> projects could easily fill a full GSoC semester. >>>> >>>> Take the first project -- the wiki is there as a documented list of >>>> known problems, not a comprehensive list of all problems. A comprehensive >>>> audit of everywhere that Django internally catches and re-raises >>>> exceptions, and how the stack track from those exceptions are exposed, >>>> would *easily* consume 12 weeks. >>>> >>>> However, we're not going to accept a project proposal that has a >>>> schedule of "audit code for 12 weeks". We're going to need you to do some >>>> initial exploration and give us a more detailed list of the sorts of >>>> problems you're going to look at. >>>> >>>> Yours, >>>> Russ Magee %-) >>>> >>>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Django developers" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to django-develop...@**googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to django-d...@**googlegroups.com. >>> >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** >>> group/django-developers?hl=en<http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en> >>> . >>> For more options, visit >>> https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_out<https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out> >>> . >>> >>> >>> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django developers" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. 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