[GSoC 2019] Interested in Baremetal D Runtime and project ideas

Hello,

I'm Stefanos Baziotis and I'm both new to D and GSoC.
I'm an undergraduate computer science student in Greece, and
I would like to contribute to the D programming language.

Unfortunately, probably I came late on the GSoC as I learned about it just
2 days before, so any info about it and/or D's selection process would be greatly appreciated.

I heard about D probably a month ago from a friend, and I thought I would
give it a try as I am not 100% satisfied with C, C++. I have to say, that was
a really fun month. :)
After about 3000 lines (of mostly writing a not-yet-finished compiler front-end), it was very exciting!

I'm mainly interested on the Baremetal D runtime project, as I am mostly comfortable
with low-level C programming. I have developed some allocators [1]
and have some SIMD experience as I have written a small image convolution MPI
program that uses AVX extensions [2].

I'm interested in other projects as well, specifically compiler-related and the persistent data structures.

I'm very enthusiastic to learn a lot about any of these projects, but I would like to
ask: What is the expected / required experience / knowledge / skills?
Also, is this the best place to discuss about this subject?

Best regards,
Stefanos Baziotis


[1] https://github.com/baziotis/Allocators
[2] https://github.com/baziotis/2D-Image-Convolution-MPI-SIMD

On Thursday, 4 April 2019 at 13:56:08 UTC, Stefanos Baziotis wrote:
> [GSoC 2019] Interested in Baremetal D Runtime and project ideas
>
> Hello,
>
> [...]

Hi Stefanos,

Thanks a lot for your interest in D!

You can find answers to some of your questions here:

https://forum.dlang.org/post/aoxlhtmvnzcgkkssayti@forum.dlang.org

Probably the best place to ask further questions is here.

On Thursday, 4 April 2019 at 14:06:43 UTC, Seb wrote:
>
> Probably the best place to ask further questions is here.

Thanks! I just read it.

Just for clarification, by "here" you mean this post or the FAQ post?
It's just that the questions that are left are specific to the project,
so I try to find the best place to "discuss your ideas publicly", as the FAQ states.

On 2019-04-04 15:56, Stefanos Baziotis wrote:

> Unfortunately, probably I came late on the GSoC as I learned about it just
> 2 days before, so any info about it and/or D's selection process would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> I'm mainly interested on the Baremetal D runtime project, as I am mostly comfortable
> with low-level C programming. I have developed some allocators [1]
> and have some SIMD experience as I have written a small image convolution MPI
> program that uses AVX extensions [2].

There's another potential GSoC student that has started a thread related to baremetal [1].

> I'm interested in other projects as well, specifically compiler-related and the persistent data structures.

Same for persistent data structures [2][3]. Here are some compiler and GSoC related threads [4][5].

> I'm very enthusiastic to learn a lot about any of these projects, but I would like to
> ask: What is the expected / required experience / knowledge / skills?
> Also, is this the best place to discuss about this subject?

Make sure you check the wiki page as well [6].

[1] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/cxntuuqepymkugvvrxhz@forum.dlang.org
[2] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/wvhuvdydvwjkwukawtmk@forum.dlang.org
[3] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/ygdbtgfablwkdxhhvbsy@forum.dlang.org
[4] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/ersuicbdvzxsliafvpjv@forum.dlang.org
[5] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/iwvtxsecerbshhagaunj@forum.dlang.org
[6] https://wiki.dlang.org/GSOC_2019_Ideas

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On Thursday, 4 April 2019 at 18:07:03 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> [1] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/cxntuuqepymkugvvrxhz@forum.dlang.org
> [2] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/wvhuvdydvwjkwukawtmk@forum.dlang.org
> [3] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/ygdbtgfablwkdxhhvbsy@forum.dlang.org
> [4] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/ersuicbdvzxsliafvpjv@forum.dlang.org
> [5] https://forum.dlang.org/thread/iwvtxsecerbshhagaunj@forum.dlang.org
> [6] https://wiki.dlang.org/GSOC_2019_Ideas

On Thursday, 4 April 2019 at 18:07:03 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

Thank you! I have seen post [1]. It seems that this guy chose a different
project idea in the end. Also, I came across [2] and [3], from which I infer that I should
contact Andrei. [4] is very interesting, but I think I'm not so competent to propose for
this but [5] actually seems to have some good ideas. :)
About [6], yeah I have checked it multiple times to be sure I'm not missing anything, thanks.

- Stefanos

On Thursday, 4 April 2019 at 13:56:08 UTC, Stefanos Baziotis wrote:
> [GSoC 2019] Interested in Baremetal D Runtime and project ideas
>

I have submitted a proposal (before 2 days) for D Baremetal Runtime. Any feedback is very welcome. :)

On Thursday, 4 April 2019 at 13:56:08 UTC, Stefanos Baziotis wrote:
> [GSoC 2019] Interested in Baremetal D Runtime and project ideas
>
> Hello,
>
> [...]

What is in the runtime we need for baremetal projects that betterC doesn't provide?

On Saturday, 6 April 2019 at 16:23:28 UTC, Stefanos Baziotis wrote:
> On Thursday, 4 April 2019 at 13:56:08 UTC, Stefanos Baziotis wrote:
>> [GSoC 2019] Interested in Baremetal D Runtime and project ideas
>>
>
> I have submitted a proposal (before 2 days) for D Baremetal Runtime. Any feedback is very welcome. :)

Where can one find this proposal?

Mike

On Saturday, 6 April 2019 at 17:50:39 UTC, IGotD- wrote:
> On Thursday, 4 April 2019 at 13:56:08 UTC, Stefanos Baziotis wrote:
>> [GSoC 2019] Interested in Baremetal D Runtime and project ideas
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> [...]
>
> What is in the runtime we need for baremetal projects that betterC doesn't provide?

There are a number of routines for which D currently calls the C standard library equivalent. For example, memcpy, memmove etc. and also malloc(), free() etc.
The idea is that these should be implemented in D to provide a more baremetal
environment for D, for limited resources (aka embedded systems). Note that the C standard library provides a lot of benefits for the general case, mainly that it has been used and tested for years.

https://wiki.dlang.org/GSOC_2019_Ideas#Baremetal_D_runtime

On Saturday, 6 April 2019 at 17:51:31 UTC, Mike Franklin wrote:
> On Saturday, 6 April 2019 at 16:23:28 UTC, Stefanos Baziotis wrote:
>> On Thursday, 4 April 2019 at 13:56:08 UTC, Stefanos Baziotis wrote:
>>> [GSoC 2019] Interested in Baremetal D Runtime and project ideas
>>>
>>
>> I have submitted a proposal (before 2 days) for D Baremetal Runtime. Any feedback is very welcome. :)
>
> Where can one find this proposal?
>
> Mike

Unfortunately, I know too little about how the GSoC works from the organization-side, but
from what I know, it should be available for potential mentors through the Summer of Code platform (if it's not, it is very unfortunate as I'm waiting 2 days :P ).
I suppose I can send it here too, as I've seen another guy do it.
In any case, this is the proposal: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B3YbjY70iVgGT7hq_16tBriLuCAUtjFR0gf0xkxmQ5c/edit?usp=sharing

Any comments are welcome!