Re: Google of Summer of Code '17

[Per Bothner]

On 01/26/2017 11:49 PM, Gavin Smith wrote:
> On 27 January 2017 at 04:03, Per Bothner <address@hidden> wrote:
> > How about adding this to the GNU GSoC project page:
> > https://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/ideas-2017.html
> >
> > (Last years's is
> > https://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/ideas-2016.html#texinfo )
>
> There would be nothing wrong really with re-using the text from that.
> I would probably miss out the bit about DomTerm because the purpose of
> a JavaScript interface would be for people to use their web browser,
> and not have to install another program like DomTerm.

Sure.

> If anybody was eligible for Google Summer of Code and wanted to apply,
> hopefully they would discuss their ideas in advance so the exact
> wording of the advert wouldn't matter. If they came up with good ideas
> that were outside the scope of what was mentioned, that would be fine
> too.

Sure - but there are some things I'm more interested in mentoring than others.

I especially would like to see work done on makeinfo (well-structured 
xhtml-compatible
output, and epub generation). (project 1), so I can stop using the DocBook 
tools.

(If we don't get a student for project 2, I will probably implement basic 
keyboard
navigation myself, though search may have to wait a bit.)

> > (1) Enhance the Perl-based makeinfo program with new output formats --xhtml
> > and --epub.
> > The xhtml format combines aspects of the existing html and xml formats.
> > The EPub format (used by ebook readers) is basically just xhtml in a zip
> > archive.
>
> I would say that the command-line options used to define the output
> format don't have to be specified.

Agreed. It just makes it easier to describe, I think.

> When I get some time I will edit this and send it to be put on the
> page for potential projects. Do you know who I would email this to?

address@hidden

> I do not want to put a link to your roadmap in the advert because they
> are just your ideas and I don't endorse them.

Which parts of the roadmap are you uncomfortable with?
(The "roadmap" term may be a bit unfortunate as it may suggest something
more of a consensus rather than an opinion.)

I can split the roadmap into multiple pieces: An actual roapmap proposal,
with separate detail pages on the two proposed projects.

> It is not the roadmap
> for the Texinfo project, as I work on whatever I think is the most
> important at the time (as time allows) and that will be true for
> anyone else also. If you would like to work on projects as specified
> by the roadmap, that would be fine.

Of course.  However, it is useful to a vision for where we'd like to be.

I hope we can agree that the following would be valuable:
(1) Clean modern well-structured XML-compatible HTML output,
either from the --html option or a new option.
(1) A nice JavaScript UI, with similar functionality as info.

Also, that these are good things to have regardless of whether we deprecate
info as a file format.
--
        --Per Bothner
address@hidden   http://per.bothner.com/