Re: [9fans] Plan 9 applying to GSoC

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 applying to GSoC

[Bakul Shah]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1967 bytes --]

On Feb 19, 2022, at 3:02 AM, sirjofri <sirjofri+ml-9fans@sirjofri.de> wrote:
> (4) A filesystem that filters a namespace, but the file contents and not the namespace.
> 
> The idea is to have a filesystem like exportfs, however, it doesn't just represent the files as is, but applies user-defined filters to the filenames/paths as well as the file contents.
> 
> Imagine you have a namespace which contains markdown files that end with .md. Using this overlay filesystem you can present the same namespace, but convert the filenames using sed (from .md to .html) and when reading, the file contents (from markdown syntax to html syntax).
> 
> The filesystem would be very powerful for exposing plain text data as html, encapsulating data into some predefined layout, and much more. It could essentially make any plain text filesystem available as regular web-friendly html files, convert troff source to postscript, convert plan 9 images to png, and much more. You can even present device files as json for modern web applications.

May be create a generic filter-fs that can be controlled with a script that can be updated via a control interface? Almost a mkfile like script so if a rule exists for .md -> .html, any listing will show foo.html instead of foo.md. Reading foo.html will transparently invoke a conversion program. You can get pretty clever and may be even install a src dir under /bin this way to build binaries on the fly! Or even just the presence of a mkfile in a filtered directory would be enough for this behavior. Taking this further, an installation of a new machine can be made instantaneous! Just use a local cache for all the binaries as they get built! Obviously this should be called mkfs :-)



------------------------------------------
9fans: 9fans
Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T745cda5087701a0d-Me5af03b18c19111f8ced87fb
Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2950 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 applying to GSoC

[ori]

Quoth Bakul Shah <bakul@iitbombay.org>:
> On Feb 19, 2022, at 3:02 AM, sirjofri <sirjofri+ml-9fans@sirjofri.de> wrote:
> > (4) A filesystem that filters a namespace, but the file contents and not the namespace.
> > 
> > The idea is to have a filesystem like exportfs, however, it doesn't just represent the files as is, but applies user-defined filters to the filenames/paths as well as the file contents.
> > 
> > Imagine you have a namespace which contains markdown files that end with .md. Using this overlay filesystem you can present the same namespace, but convert the filenames using sed (from .md to .html) and when reading, the file contents (from markdown syntax to html syntax).
> > 
> > The filesystem would be very powerful for exposing plain text data as html, encapsulating data into some predefined layout, and much more. It could essentially make any plain text filesystem available as regular web-friendly html files, convert troff source to postscript, convert plan 9 images to png, and much more. You can even present device files as json for modern web applications.
> 
> May be create a generic filter-fs that can be controlled with a script that can be updated via a control interface? Almost a mkfile like script so if a rule exists for .md -> .html, any listing will show foo.html instead of foo.md. Reading foo.html will transparently invoke a conversion program. You can get pretty clever and may be even install a src dir under /bin this way to build binaries on the fly! Or even just the presence of a mkfile in a filtered directory would be enough for this behavior. Taking this further, an installation of a new machine can be made instantaneous! Just use a local cache for all the binaries as they get built! Obviously this should be called mkfs :-)
> 

See, for example, execfs, here:

        http://felloff.net/usr/cinap_lenrek/

I use it for https://shithub.us, though it has
a number of limitations. Using it as a starting
point, but replacing regexes on the path with
a more powerful language, would probably get
quite close to what's described here.



------------------------------------------
9fans: 9fans
Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T745cda5087701a0d-M9791daa4c063f7ae31acf876
Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription

[9fans] Plan 9 applying to GSoC

[Anthony Sorace]

Plan 9 is applying to GSoC again!

The application period closes on Monday, and our formal application is in. As is the case every year, the most critical part of an application is the org's ideas page[1]. We'd love additional fleshed-out contributions for that. Since we had a little confusion on this last year, please note that we're looking specifically for well-developed ideas that would be good summer-sized projects for new contributors, from folks willing to mentor those projects (rather than "it'd be neat if someone would do X"); see the existing ideas page for examples (some of which are more developed than others, certainly!).

If you're interested in mentoring, please let me know! Bringing your own project idea is great, but we can also use more experienced, eager folks to pair up with new contributors on other projects.

We've got an overview page[2], and all the program details are on Google's GSoC page[3], and  you might be interested in the program timeline[4] in particular.

One other note, for those of you who're familiar with the program, there are a few notable changes, which Google goes into in a post[5] about them. In brief, though:

        - The program is now open to a lot more than just formal students
        - There are two project sizes: large ("traditional") and medium (like last year's)
        - The timing of the work is more flexible.

I think these are all great (even if they make a little more work for admins and mentors!) and should be nice additions to the program.

Your friendly neighborhood org admin,
Anthony

[1]     https://p9f.org/wiki/gsoc-2022-ideas/index.html
[2]     http://p9f.org/wiki/gsoc/index.html
[3]     https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com
[4]     https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline
[5]     https://opensource.googleblog.com/2021/11/expanding-google-summer-of-code-in-2022.html
------------------------------------------
9fans: 9fans
Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Td4449edc4863e16e-M45b7473d430aea7c8b74b8ab
Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 applying to GSoC

[Lucio De Re]

On 2/18/22, Anthony Sorace <a@9srv.net> wrote:
> Plan 9 is applying to GSoC again!
>
> [ ... ]

I've done a bit of work on P9P's fontsrv as well as a version -
somewhat mysteriously different - "ported" to Plan 9. If we can debate
the pros and cons of effectively replacing the static availability of
fonts in Plan 9 with a networked TrueType font server (as I am largely
using presently, to some extent), I believe some work could be
dedicated in turning fontsrv into an integral part of the Plan 9
distributions.

I'll be happy to assist with mentorship in this. I'd no doubt learn
much myself in the process.

Lucio.

------------------------------------------
9fans: 9fans
Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Td4449edc4863e16e-M23f605304b6f1f5c7288abc1
Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 applying to GSoC

[sirjofri]

Good morning,

I skimmed through the ideas page as well as the mails in this thread and 
I wanted to share my thoughts and ideas.

(1) I am working on a port of 9front to the pinephone smartphone. 
Although it is still a long way to go I believe the project can be very 
interesting for UI ideas and implementations. This would also fit tbe rio 
alternatives idea. Let me quickly explain.

Plan 9 has a unique user interface built from many components. We have 
heavy use of three mouse buttons, many text-based interfaces (also 
counting acme tags, for example), system-wide plumber support, only to 
mention few of those. However, some of these aspects don't make much 
sense on a touch device due to big thumbs and the nature of touchscreens.

The idea for this would be designing an integrated, Plan 9-worthy 
touchscreen rio replacement for mobile devices. Ideally it can coexist 
with rio (i.e run inside rio windows and rio can run inside 
"this-window-manager" windows) and is fully compatible with existing 
graphical UI applications (using standard draw routines).

Although the software can currently not be tested on the pinephone (I'm 
still working on the kernel) there are some devices with rudimentary 
touchscreen support (I have a working thinkpad twist with 9front) we can 
use for testing, and some functionality can be tested inside scaled rio 
windows on common Plan 9 systems.


(2) Under similar circumstances (mobile device with touch input) another 
project might be some kinda graphical (rc) shell interface. I have an 
idea, and we also discussed ideas on the discord server.


(3) A high-level filesystem interface for UI widgets. Many modern UI 
layouts can be described as a hierarchy of containers. The UI filesystem 
would start as an empty window, which is reflected by an empty 
filesystem. The user could create widget containers (hbox, vbox) by 
creating directories and files, as well as input boxes, buttons and more 
by creating files. The hierarchy would directly reflect the drawn window. 
The user can listen to files for button interaction and write text to 
labels etc..


(4) A filesystem that filters a namespace, but the file contents and not 
the namespace.

The idea is to have a filesystem like exportfs, however, it doesn't just 
represent the files as is, but applies user-defined filters to the 
filenames/paths as well as the file contents.

Imagine you have a namespace which contains markdown files that end with 
.md. Using this overlay filesystem you can present the same namespace, 
but convert the filenames using sed (from .md to .html) and when reading, 
the file contents (from markdown syntax to html syntax).

The filesystem would be very powerful for exposing plain text data as 
html, encapsulating data into some predefined layout, and much more. It 
could essentially make any plain text filesystem available as regular 
web-friendly html files, convert troff source to postscript, convert plan 
9 images to png, and much more. You can even present device files as json 
for modern web applications.

Caching file contents can improve performance and reduce load.


(5) Ringfs. This is a very small project and also the least powerful as 
far as I can say now.

The general idea is that the filesystem presents the created files and 
when reading a file the contents point to the next file in the "ring" in 
alphabetical order.

It's probably best explained using the following shell interaction:

; touch fileA fileB fileC
; cat fileA
fileB
; cat fileB
fileC
; cat fileC
fileA

The project is very small and probably too simple for a GSoC project.



These are some ideas I thought about in the last months. Some are very 
small and I can imagine mentoring these smaller projects if it's not to 
hard. My time is rare (as for most of you I guess) and I never mentored 
any programmer, so I guess I'd ask more experienced people now and then.

Personally I like all of these ideas and would like to work on all of 
them if I had enough time.

sirjofri

------------------------------------------
9fans: 9fans
Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Td4449edc4863e16e-M7eef49e9a147609a6fee4160
Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 applying to GSoC

[ori]

Quoth Anthony Sorace <a@9srv.net>:
> Plan 9 is applying to GSoC again!
> 
> The application period closes on Monday, and our formal application is in. As is the case every year, the most critical part of an application is the org's ideas page[1]. We'd love additional fleshed-out contributions for that. Since we had a little confusion on this last year, please note that we're looking specifically for well-developed ideas that would be good summer-sized projects for new contributors, from folks willing to mentor those projects (rather than "it'd be neat if someone would do X"); see the existing ideas page for examples (some of which are more developed than others, certainly!).
> 
> If you're interested in mentoring, please let me know! Bringing your own project idea is great, but we can also use more experienced, eager folks to pair up with new contributors on other projects.
> 
> We've got an overview page[2], and all the program details are on Google's GSoC page[3], and  you might be interested in the program timeline[4] in particular.
> 
> One other note, for those of you who're familiar with the program, there are a few notable changes, which Google goes into in a post[5] about them. In brief, though:
> 
> - The program is now open to a lot more than just formal students
> - There are two project sizes: large ("traditional") and medium (like last year's)
> - The timing of the work is more flexible.
> 
> I think these are all great (even if they make a little more work for admins and mentors!) and should be nice additions to the program.
> 
> Your friendly neighborhood org admin,
> Anthony
> 
> [1]     https://p9f.org/wiki/gsoc-2022-ideas/index.html
> [2]     http://p9f.org/wiki/gsoc/index.html
> [3]     https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com
> [4]     https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline
> [5]     https://opensource.googleblog.com/2021/11/expanding-google-summer-of-code-in-2022.html

While pdffs project that was proposed last year didn't
get accepted, the student that proposed it still made a
lot of progress, and now that code can fully extract
text from PDFs.

It may be worth trying to carry that forward.


------------------------------------------
9fans: 9fans
Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Td4449edc4863e16e-Mface259247e81fb72187850d
Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription