[Nix-dev] Ideas for a NixOS-related bachelors thesis?

[Joel Moberg]

There are some ideas presented for GSOC 2015 here
https://nixos.org/wiki/GSOC_2015_ideas_list, my fave is P2P substitutes.
This would mean it would be easy to share a cache and in some cases improve
speed. Maybe not all features are needed for this project. For example, a
interface where you can control what to seed can be added later on.

In the end I think you should choose what you think will be most fun or the
project that you think will make nix or nixos stronger. Good luck :)

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 9:01 AM, Matthias Beyer <mail at beyermatthias.de>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> for those who don't know me: I'm a 24 year old student at a university
> of applied sciences in the black forest, germany. I'm in my 6th
> Semester right now, the 7th (bachelors thesis) starting in
> Feb/March 2016.
>
> I'm writing you people because there might be ideas for a
> NixOS-related bachelors thesis?
>
> The constants are:
>
>     - Time: Something 4-month-is
>
>     - I don't want to do it at a company and I want to remain at my
>       university for the time of the thesis, if possible. Also because
>       I still want to attend some (voluntary) lessons there
>
>     - The topic should be NixOS related (personal interest), I have to
>       convince my professor, though
>
>     - It should be programming-related
>
>     - I want to be able to create, I want to be able to be creative
>
>     - I want to be able to choose the language I program in, if
>       possible. Candidates are:
>
>         - C (not unconditionally)
>         - C++ (I'm not so good at it)
>         - Ruby (I'm really good, I guess)
>         - Bash (I'm okay at it)
>
>     - I can relate to the topic. I have no personal use for nixops and
>       therefor never used it, so I won't have any relation to a
>       nixops-related topic... I guess you understand what I mean here.
>
> I guess there are more things to this list and I just cannot remember
> them right now.
>
> I already had an idea, where a prof told me that he would do this and
> the scope is okay for a thesis at a university of applied sciences:
>
>     The idea was to create a source-to-source compiler and translate
>     (for example) Archlinux pkgbuild files to nix expressions.
>
>     There would be three steps in complexity:
>
>         Simple: compile one package to one package. Just AST
>         transformation, nix files have to be manually edited
>         afterwards, eventually
>
>         Medium: compile a tree of packages (optionally find cyclic
>         dependencies), nix files have to be manually edited
>         afterwards, eventually
>
>         Complex/Large: compile a tree of packages, find cyclic
>         dependencies, be able to build the expressions without further
>         modification (the compiler resolves dependencies
>         appropriately)
>
>     I guess I would do Simple and Medium, Large if I have too much
>     time left.
>
>     I'd do this in Ruby and I'd use a parser generator for this and
>     not write a parser on my own.
>
> This is considered a great amount of work for a bachelors thesis by
> one of my profs, but he also things I'm a rather good student and I
> can do this. I hope this gives you an idea of what amount is
> appropriate.
>
>
> So why this mail? Just a quick POLL to get some more ideas out of the
> community. Maybe there are more interesting topics around, I don't
> know.
>
> I will be at NixCon and almost certainly at 32C3, so we can discuss
> there as well.
>
> --
> Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
> Kind regards,
> Matthias Beyer
>
> Proudly sent with mutt.
> Happily signed with gnupg.
>
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>
>
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