Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
This past weekend, approximately 250 Open Source developers from around the world gathered at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, CA for the fourth Google Summer of Code™ Mentor Summit. These developers who mentored students in this year's Google Summer of Code program gathered "unconference" style to discuss ways to improve the program, share their experiences, and learn about each other's projects.
One of the recurring comments about what makes the Mentor Summit special was that it gathers developers from a diverse range of projects (all 150 organizations participating in this year's Google Summer of Code were invited to send two delegates). This allowed for a cross pollination of ideas that isn't usually found at conferences dedicated to one specific platform or language. In addition, the summit was an opportunity for developers who usually collaborate online to meet face to face. In fact, some of our attendees met colleagues they had been working with for several years in person for the first time at the summit!
Most of all, the summit was a great place to meet like minded Open Source developers who are passionate about bringing in new contributors to their communities. Check out photos from the event or read through the session notes to find out more about what happened at this year's summit.
Fall at the OSPO
Friday, October 23, 2009
The leaves are turning here in Mountain View, but they are not the only ones blazing away. It's a busy time of year for open source for Google, with lots of talks and events going on.
Recently:
- Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian (Fitz) Fitzpatrick gave their "Myth of the Genius Programmer" talk as part of the Opening sessions at "Reflections / Projections", the 15th ACM@UIUC Student Computing Conference at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
- They were joined by Googler and Python maintainer Alex Martelli, who spoke on "Python and the Programmer".
- Chris DiBona, head of the Open Source Programs Office at Google gave a keynote at AstriCon in Glendale, Arizona.
Currently:
- Earlier this week Leslie Hawthorn, manager of the Google Summer of Code program, was part of the amazing team that completed a new "Manual on GSoC Mentoring" in 2, count them, 2 DAYS, finishing up late last night. You will hear more about this feat in a later post after the...
- Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit 2009, being held in Mountain View this weekend, October 24th and 25th. This invitation-only gathering of mentors from each of the participating mentoring organizations in this year's GSoC gives the projects a chance to come together to compare notes on the mentoring process and cross-pollinate their projects. A good time promises to be had by all, and a full report will be forthcoming.
Coming up:
- Jonathan Blocksom will be speaking on Google App Engine and the All For Good project at the DC edition of Stack Overflow Dev Days, October 26th.
- On October 4th the LISA Conference in Baltimore, Maryland will feature a talk by Daniel Berlin and Joe Gregorio on the Google Wave Federation Protocol, the underlying open network protocol for sharing waves between wave providers. Interested attendees of LISA will be able to sign up for a developers Wave Sandbox Account. They will also have a chance to win Googley prizes at the Google Birds of a Feather session the next evening, hosted by Cat Allman and Tom Limoncelli.
Recently:
- Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian (Fitz) Fitzpatrick gave their "Myth of the Genius Programmer" talk as part of the Opening sessions at "Reflections / Projections", the 15th ACM@UIUC Student Computing Conference at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
- They were joined by Googler and Python maintainer Alex Martelli, who spoke on "Python and the Programmer".
- Chris DiBona, head of the Open Source Programs Office at Google gave a keynote at AstriCon in Glendale, Arizona.
Currently:
- Earlier this week Leslie Hawthorn, manager of the Google Summer of Code program, was part of the amazing team that completed a new "Manual on GSoC Mentoring" in 2, count them, 2 DAYS, finishing up late last night. You will hear more about this feat in a later post after the...
- Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit 2009, being held in Mountain View this weekend, October 24th and 25th. This invitation-only gathering of mentors from each of the participating mentoring organizations in this year's GSoC gives the projects a chance to come together to compare notes on the mentoring process and cross-pollinate their projects. A good time promises to be had by all, and a full report will be forthcoming.
Coming up:
- Jonathan Blocksom will be speaking on Google App Engine and the All For Good project at the DC edition of Stack Overflow Dev Days, October 26th.
- On October 4th the LISA Conference in Baltimore, Maryland will feature a talk by Daniel Berlin and Joe Gregorio on the Google Wave Federation Protocol, the underlying open network protocol for sharing waves between wave providers. Interested attendees of LISA will be able to sign up for a developers Wave Sandbox Account. They will also have a chance to win Googley prizes at the Google Birds of a Feather session the next evening, hosted by Cat Allman and Tom Limoncelli.
TalkBack: An Open Source Screenreader For Android
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Earlier this year, we blogged about project Eyes-Free — a collection of Android applications that enable efficient eyes-free interaction with your mobile phone. Since then, one of the questions we have received most often is about a complete access API to enable general purpose adaptive technologies such as screenreaders.
We are happy to announce the first version of such an API as part of the latest Android release (Donut). This new API is now available within the Android 1.6 SDK , and we welcome developer feedback. The Android Access framework generates android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityEvent in response to user interaction events; the event payload contains additional details about the event, e.g., the user interface control that received focus. This access framework enables the creation of general purpose screenreading applications that make all of Android's user interface, as well as native Android applications built with standard Android widgets usable without looking at the screen.
You can see this API in use within our Open Source Android screenreader TalkBack. With TalkBack installed, standard Android user interface elements such as ListView produce spoken feedback during user interaction. Applications SoundBack (for producing non-spoken auditory feedback) and KickBack (for producing haptic feedback) generate additional augmentative output and demonstrate how multiple access applications can be active simultaneously.
in response to user interaction events; the event payload contains additional details about the event, e.g., the user interface control that received focus. This access framework enables the creation of general purpose screenreading applications that make all of Android's user interface, as well as native Android applications built with standard Android widgets usable without looking at the screen.
What This Means For Developers
If you are interested in developing innovative access solutions on Android and have been eagerly waiting for our access APIs, the Donut SDK contains what you have been waiting for — including a set of free voices for English (US and UK), French, Italian, German and Spanish. You can use TalkBack, SoundBack and KickBack as a starting point for designing your own access innovations.
If you are an Android developer interested in making your applications more widely usable, you can use TalkBack and friends to quickly verify whether your applications remain usable when not looking at the screen. In this context, here are a few coding tips to ensure that your applications work out of the box with these tools:
End-users of Android 1.6 (Donut) can enable TalkBack, SoundBack and KickBack via the Accessibility section of the Settings menu. You need to do this only once i.e., once enabled, these access applications remain active across restarts. Note that depending on your Android device, you may need to install these applications from the Android Market; we will post videos that demonstrate step-by-step instructions for specific Android devices in the Eyes-Free channel on YouTube.
Providing Feedback
We (T. V. Raman, Charles L Chen, and Svetoslav Ganov) will be continuously improving the underlying APIs and access tools, and we look forward to your questions and feedback on the Android Developers Group.
We are happy to announce the first version of such an API as part of the latest Android release (Donut). This new API is now available within the Android 1.6 SDK , and we welcome developer feedback. The Android Access framework generates android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityEvent in response to user interaction events; the event payload contains additional details about the event, e.g., the user interface control that received focus. This access framework enables the creation of general purpose screenreading applications that make all of Android's user interface, as well as native Android applications built with standard Android widgets usable without looking at the screen.
You can see this API in use within our Open Source Android screenreader TalkBack. With TalkBack installed, standard Android user interface elements such as ListView produce spoken feedback during user interaction. Applications SoundBack (for producing non-spoken auditory feedback) and KickBack (for producing haptic feedback) generate additional augmentative output and demonstrate how multiple access applications can be active simultaneously.
in response to user interaction events; the event payload contains additional details about the event, e.g., the user interface control that received focus. This access framework enables the creation of general purpose screenreading applications that make all of Android's user interface, as well as native Android applications built with standard Android widgets usable without looking at the screen.
What This Means For Developers
If you are interested in developing innovative access solutions on Android and have been eagerly waiting for our access APIs, the Donut SDK contains what you have been waiting for — including a set of free voices for English (US and UK), French, Italian, German and Spanish. You can use TalkBack, SoundBack and KickBack as a starting point for designing your own access innovations.
If you are an Android developer interested in making your applications more widely usable, you can use TalkBack and friends to quickly verify whether your applications remain usable when not looking at the screen. In this context, here are a few coding tips to ensure that your applications work out of the box with these tools:
- Ensure that all visually drawn UI controls have meaningful textual labels.
- Ensure that users can navigate to all controls in your application using the trackball.
- Ensure that navigating controls in your application with the trackball results in a meaningful traversal order.
End-users of Android 1.6 (Donut) can enable TalkBack, SoundBack and KickBack via the Accessibility section of the Settings menu. You need to do this only once i.e., once enabled, these access applications remain active across restarts. Note that depending on your Android device, you may need to install these applications from the Android Market; we will post videos that demonstrate step-by-step instructions for specific Android devices in the Eyes-Free channel on YouTube.
Providing Feedback
We (T. V. Raman, Charles L Chen, and Svetoslav Ganov) will be continuously improving the underlying APIs and access tools, and we look forward to your questions and feedback on the Android Developers Group.
Boldly Talking Python in Boulder
Friday, October 16, 2009
On Saturday, October 10, the Front Range Pythoneers had a Python "unconference" at the Google facilities in Boulder, Colorado, USA. An "Unconference" is a conference organized around the principles ofopen space technologies, which tries to provide many of the benefits of traditional conferences without the associated ceremony. We still got to enjoy some delicious pizza, though.
Introducing the Pycon Boulder Attendees to Principles of Open Space
Photo Credit: Matt Boersma
It was unseasonably snowy and cold Saturday morning, but in spite of the weather, almost everybody that signed up in advance was there, along with a few last-minute registrants. We had nearly 40 attendees join us for 15+ sessions, plus the always loved "hallway track." Many thanks to the three Googlers who came out to shepherd our group and facilitate the meeting.
You can find more information about the event and sessions on our wiki, Tweets about the event and this great post-conference write up. You can also check out some more photos of the participants and our scheduling process. We discussed the following topics, among others:
Introducing the Pycon Boulder Attendees to Principles of Open Space
Photo Credit: Matt Boersma
It was unseasonably snowy and cold Saturday morning, but in spite of the weather, almost everybody that signed up in advance was there, along with a few last-minute registrants. We had nearly 40 attendees join us for 15+ sessions, plus the always loved "hallway track." Many thanks to the three Googlers who came out to shepherd our group and facilitate the meeting.
You can find more information about the event and sessions on our wiki, Tweets about the event and this great post-conference write up. You can also check out some more photos of the participants and our scheduling process. We discussed the following topics, among others:
- Intro to Python
- ctypes tips & tricks
- Python extensions
- matplotlib
- Web development frameworks, including Django
- Database access
- Concurrency & pre-emptive multithreading
- Event-based/actor development (e.g., Twisted & Kamaelia)
- Cooperative multithreading (stackless/greenlets)
- pyprocessing
- Game development with Pyglet/OpenGL
- Jython
- RPC using Twisted/Foolscap
- Desktop Application Development (PyQT/QT, wxWidgets, GTK)
- IPython
- Google's office decoration contest, "Pimp My Cube"
Fighting Bad Memories: The Stressful Application Test
Thursday, October 15, 2009
We've just released Stressful Application Test (or stressapptest), a hardware test used here at Google to test a large number of components in a machine. The test tries to maximize random traffic to memory from processor and disks with the intent of creating a realistic high load situation. The source code is available under the Apache license.
stressapptest may be used for various purposes:
stressapptest is a user space test, primarily composed of threads doing memory copies and direct I/O disk read/write. Since many hardware issues reproduce infrequently, or only under corner cases, the idea behind the test is that by maximizing bus and memory traffic, the number of transactions is increased, and therefore the probability of failing a transaction is increased. It loads the memory with specially-designed patterns that cause the signal lines to rapidly switch between 1 and 0, drawing the maximum amount of power and cause maximal noise on the nearby voltage rails. Noise on voltage rails and coupling with other nearby lines is likely to cause signaling problems on marginal lines. Also, given a probability of any signal level transition failing, these patterns have the most memory transitions per period of time, and are thus more likely to exhibit a failure.
This test was designed to test all memory available on a machine, which is not guaranteed with the execution of a CPU-intensive application (for instance, compiling the kernel on multiple threads). Moreover, it is focused on testing the memory interface and connections, not the memory internally, like memtest86. As a consequence, Stressful Application Test will detect errors not detected by regular memory tests or extended executions. A comparison with some other memory reliability tests showed that about 20% of the DIMM-related failures detected on the machines tested were only detected by Stressful Application Test, and it was capable of reporting 70% of all DIMM errors detected by all tests.
We hope this software will be useful to system administrators who need to diagnose and repair DIMM or other components. We look forward to your questions and feedback in our discussion group. Happy hacking and may your testing be less stressful!
stressapptest may be used for various purposes:
- Stress test for machines.
- Hardware qualification and debugging.
- Memory interface test.
- Disk testing.
The stressapptest team (from left to right): Matthew Blecker, John Huang, Raphael Menderico, Nick Sanders, John Hawley and James Vera
Photo credit: Taral Joglekar
Photo credit: Taral Joglekar
stressapptest is a user space test, primarily composed of threads doing memory copies and direct I/O disk read/write. Since many hardware issues reproduce infrequently, or only under corner cases, the idea behind the test is that by maximizing bus and memory traffic, the number of transactions is increased, and therefore the probability of failing a transaction is increased. It loads the memory with specially-designed patterns that cause the signal lines to rapidly switch between 1 and 0, drawing the maximum amount of power and cause maximal noise on the nearby voltage rails. Noise on voltage rails and coupling with other nearby lines is likely to cause signaling problems on marginal lines. Also, given a probability of any signal level transition failing, these patterns have the most memory transitions per period of time, and are thus more likely to exhibit a failure.
This test was designed to test all memory available on a machine, which is not guaranteed with the execution of a CPU-intensive application (for instance, compiling the kernel on multiple threads). Moreover, it is focused on testing the memory interface and connections, not the memory internally, like memtest86. As a consequence, Stressful Application Test will detect errors not detected by regular memory tests or extended executions. A comparison with some other memory reliability tests showed that about 20% of the DIMM-related failures detected on the machines tested were only detected by Stressful Application Test, and it was capable of reporting 70% of all DIMM errors detected by all tests.
We hope this software will be useful to system administrators who need to diagnose and repair DIMM or other components. We look forward to your questions and feedback in our discussion group. Happy hacking and may your testing be less stressful!