Thanks for the great reply Rob, sent you a Note. On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 1:07 AM, Rob Weir <robw...@apache.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 8:25 AM, Ian <i...@amham.net> wrote: > > > Hi People, > > > > not sure if this is the correct place to raise my head, but I have been > > lurking here for a week or so now with a view to getting involved. Like > > everyone I am not sure how much time I really have. > > > > > > Hi Ian, > > Welcome to the project. Although "ooo-dev" might sound like it is only for > developers, it actually is the project's main list. So you are in the > right place. > > We have some subsidiary lists as well: > > http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/mailing-lists.html > > > > > My background is that of a software developer for some twenty plus years > > (currently employed by the same institution as Rob, but on the other side > > of the world, in Australia). > > I'll skip the resume etc. I figure people are more interested in getting > > things done. > > > > I have been looking around at the get involved links. They are very > > misleading and take you to places that look like they have not been > updated > > for many years. > > like ,,, http://codesnippets.services.openoffice.org/index.xml which is > > from the http://www.openoffice.org/development/ page. I'm sure I saw > > cobwebs in the corners there. > > (A review of the potential new developers interface may be needed?) > > > > Anyway, I'm sure I will find my way around eventually. All guidance > > gratefully accepted. > > > > > Hmmm.... This should be our main "get involved" page: > > http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/get-involved.html > > But it sounds like there are paths that lead visitors elsewhere. We need > to fix that. > > > > I don't understand what if anything someone needs to do to join the gang. > > Are there any weird initiations, gotta get the new logo tatoo? :-) > > > > > If you contact me via Notes, I can fill you in on the internal IBM > requirements (Open Source Participation Guidelines). > > Also, take a tool at the Apache roles and the way the meritocracy works: > > http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#roles > > No paperwork is needed for contributers. There is an iCLA form that you > can sign and return. Even though it is only required for Committers, > anyone who thinks they will be active in the project is encouraged to > complete that paperwork. > > I am particularly interested in developer testing frameworks (still trying > > to figure out why). > > And langauge parsers/compilers. > > > > I am also a new Master's student (must have lost my mind somewhere) and > > wondered if I could combine helping here and also using some of the > > knowledge gained as part of my thesis. > > Not sure what the rules are re IP etc. > > > > > There are some interesting things that could have research interest as well > as helping the project. For example, consider testing document layout. We > can automate document creation, and specify the styles and content of a > document, but verifying whether it appears correctly is a manual task. > > At the simplest level we might want to check to see whether today's build > renders documents the same they were rendered in the last release. So we > want to detect regressions. > > At a more complex level we might want to verify correctness of the > rendering, as defined by some specification. > > Having high quality rendering in this area is of critical importance to > users, but today is a manual task. > > Now you could imagine just doing screen shots and doing pixel level > comparisons. That is easy to implement but will be overly-sensitive and > give many false positives. Slight UI changes, platform differences, etc. > can introduce insignificant changes. Some of augmented this approach by > looking at the percentage difference in the before and after images. > > Another approach might be based on OCR technology to deconstruct the > rendered document to determine facts such as size of margin, number of > lines of text, alignment, size of headers, etc. These facts could then be > compared to a test specification. This approach might be easier if the > document is first rendered to a PDF file rather than using a screenshot. > > And another approach could be to rely on human judgment on sameness or > correctness of the rendered pages, but devise some way to crowd-source > these comparisons. For example, we could have a web-service that would > show the before and after images, a different one each time, and ask users > to mark them as same/different/not sure. Or give the specification for > what it should look like and ask viewer to score them. > > An example of that technique can be seen at "Galaxy Zoo" where astronomers > use crowd sourcing to classify galaxies: > > http://www.galaxyzoo.org/classify > > > So there may be something here that could make a tremendous contribution to > the project as well as be suitable as a thesis project. > > > Hope to hear back from someone. Email directly, Don't bother clogging up > > this mail list. > > > > > > I hope these answers may be of more general interest, so I'm sending them > to ooo-dev as well. > > Regards, > > -Rob > > > > Cheers, > > > > Ian > > >
