Your GSoC project - first step

[Daniel Bankston [danthedev]]

On 04/23/2012 06:07 PM, Kohei Yoshida wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
>
> First of all, welcome aboard for GSoC 2012!  We are very excited to
> have you work on Calc's performance improvement this summer.
>
> According to the official GSoC timeline, we should spend the first
> couple of weeks getting to know your mentors (which is, me and
> Markus), read documentation, and get up to speed on your project.  I
> assume that, since you've already worked on two easy hacks, you
> already know how to build, hack, and submit patches using git enough
> to get started.  If not, you are welcome to ask us for help.
>
> I talked with Markus briefly, and we think that as a starter, we
> should stay on the xlsx import code and make a few more improvements
> there before moving on to other areas.  We have already covered the
> named ranges import, and now we will shift our focus to cell value
> import, and hopefully make it a bit faster than it currently is.  The
> first thing we'd like you to do toward this goal is to create a test
> xlsx document, and add it to our filters-test.  Markus knows more
> about this filters-test framework, so I'll let him fill you in on the
> details.
>
> Last but not least, can you give us a brief introduction of yourself
> now that you are officially in? :-)
>
> Looking forward to working with you this summer!
>
> Kohei

Hi, Kohei,

I am excited and grateful to be able to work on the GSOC Calc 
performance improvements project!

Yes, I have had the opportunity to speak to both you and Markus on 
different occasions in the past few weeks, and I'm glad to have you as 
my mentors.  For documentation, I have been using a combination of 
http://opengrok.libreoffice.org, http://api.libreoffice.org, 
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Code_Overview, 
docs.libreoffice.org, grepping the code on my own file system, and 
sometimes miscellaneous other ways.  I also have looked into your editor 
recommendation and your class diagram.  Are there other recommendations 
for documentation other than these?  Yes, I am comfortable building, 
hacking, and submitting patches using git.  As I've stated before, I 
will be mostly busy with end of the semester school assignments and 
finals until the end of the first week of May.  Even so, I will do what 
I can on LibreOffice related tasks.

As for the filters-test framework and test xslx document, I look forward 
to learning more.

An introduction of myself:
I am from Mississippi, USA and joined the United States Marine Corps 
upon graduating high school.  I traveled to places in the USA like South 
Carolina, North Carolina, and California, but I spent the majority of my 
time in Okinawa, Japan.  In the USMC, I performed many duties, but I was 
primarily the IT Support for my unit.  I was Honorably Discharged after 
five years of service and came back to Mississippi.  A year later, I 
started attending college to pursue my dream of becoming a software 
developer.  I currently plan to graduate in December of this year with a 
BS in Software Engineering.  Although I have yet to gain professional 
experience developing software, I have worked on several different 
programming assignments and software projects during my school course 
work, and I have experimented with software development outside of 
school.  Inside and outside of school work, I have had the opportunity 
to use general development technologies such C, C++, Java, and Python 
and web development technologies such as HTML, CSS, jQuery, Java EE, and 
PHP.  Once I obtain my degree, I aim to be employed as a full time 
software developer, and I am willing to relocate.

Once again, thank you, Kohei, Markus, and the LibreOffice community, for 
allowing me to work on LibreOffice as a part of this year's GSOC.


Respectfully,
Daniel Bankston