Google's Summer of Code ...

In case nobody has seen this:

http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html

Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to find a
student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

Marc,

If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be willing to
work with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on PostgreSQL
projects, the money can go to the group.

If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
Development Group, I can do it under my company.

Thoughts?

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

>
> In case nobody has seen this:
>
> http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
>
> Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to
> find a student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
>
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> 7615664
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq

I think we definitely should submit PostgreSQL to Google.

Oleg
On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Jonah H. Harris wrote:

> Marc,
>
> If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be willing to work
> with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on PostgreSQL projects,
> the money can go to the group.
>
> If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
> Development Group, I can do it under my company.
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
>
> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
>>
>> In case nobody has seen this:
>>
>> http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
>>
>> Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to find a
>> student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
>>
>>
>> ----
>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>>
>> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>

Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet,
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia)
Internet: oleg(at)sai(dot)msu(dot)su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83

We have a whole TODO list of potential items for people to work on, and we
have several member of this list that work for universities in some capacity,
so istm we ought to give it a shot. I would think this is something that the
foundation would be good to be involved in as well, as it would certainly
help it all appear official. We just need to tie up the loose ends on who
would be available to do the mentoring, which might need to be different
people depending on the work involved, unless you think you could handle all
comers Jonah?

Robert Treat

On Wednesday 01 June 2005 10:53, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> Marc,
>
> If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be willing to
> work with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on PostgreSQL
> projects, the money can go to the group.
>
> If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
> Development Group, I can do it under my company.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > In case nobody has seen this:
> >
> > http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
> >
> > Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to
> > find a student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
> >
> >
> > ----
> > Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> > (http://www.hub.org)
> > Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> > 7615664
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
> >
> > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

My participation would be limited to the actual number of newcomers. I
feel comfortable helping 2 or 3 people; any more than that would impact
my clients and consulting time. Although, it would never hurt to have
additional mentors :).

Robert Treat wrote:

>We have a whole TODO list of potential items for people to work on, and we
>have several member of this list that work for universities in some capacity,
>so istm we ought to give it a shot. I would think this is something that the
>foundation would be good to be involved in as well, as it would certainly
>help it all appear official. We just need to tie up the loose ends on who
>would be available to do the mentoring, which might need to be different
>people depending on the work involved, unless you think you could handle all
>comers Jonah?
>
>Robert Treat
>
>On Wednesday 01 June 2005 10:53, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>
>
>>Marc,
>>
>>If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be willing to
>>work with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on PostgreSQL
>>projects, the money can go to the group.
>>
>>If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
>>Development Group, I can do it under my company.
>>
>>Thoughts?
>>
>>Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>
>>
>>>In case nobody has seen this:
>>>
>>> http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
>>>
>>>Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to
>>>find a student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
>>>
>>>
>>>----
>>>Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
>>>(http://www.hub.org)
>>>Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
>>>7615664
>>>
>>>---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>>TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>>>
>>> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>>>
>>>
>>---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>>
>>
>
>
>

Are there any restrictions on 'mentor groups'? For instance, could we
create a 'mentors' mailing list, closed subscriptions, that contained
those willing to actively mentor, so that those being mentor'd have
multiple ppl's knowledge's to feed upon?

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Jonah H. Harris wrote:

> My participation would be limited to the actual number of newcomers. I feel
> comfortable helping 2 or 3 people; any more than that would impact my clients
> and consulting time. Although, it would never hurt to have additional
> mentors :).
>
>
> Robert Treat wrote:
>
>> We have a whole TODO list of potential items for people to work on, and we
>> have several member of this list that work for universities in some
>> capacity, so istm we ought to give it a shot. I would think this is
>> something that the foundation would be good to be involved in as well, as
>> it would certainly help it all appear official. We just need to tie up the
>> loose ends on who would be available to do the mentoring, which might need
>> to be different people depending on the work involved, unless you think you
>> could handle all comers Jonah?
>> Robert Treat
>>
>> On Wednesday 01 June 2005 10:53, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>>
>>> Marc,
>>>
>>> If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be willing to
>>> work with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on PostgreSQL
>>> projects, the money can go to the group.
>>>
>>> If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
>>> Development Group, I can do it under my company.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>>
>>>> In case nobody has seen this:
>>>>
>>>> http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
>>>>
>>>> Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to
>>>> find a student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----
>>>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
>>>> (http://www.hub.org)
>>>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
>>>> 7615664
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>>> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>>>>
>>>> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>>>>
>>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

One concern that was raised off of this list was the steep learning curve
to start with, to get to the point of beign able to do anything ...

Do we have any 'students' that are already up to speed, enough so that
they'd be able to accomplish something significant over a 2-3 month
period?

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

>
> Are there any restrictions on 'mentor groups'? For instance, could we create
> a 'mentors' mailing list, closed subscriptions, that contained those willing
> to actively mentor, so that those being mentor'd have multiple ppl's
> knowledge's to feed upon?
>
> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>
>> My participation would be limited to the actual number of newcomers. I
>> feel comfortable helping 2 or 3 people; any more than that would impact my
>> clients and consulting time. Although, it would never hurt to have
>> additional mentors :).
>>
>>
>> Robert Treat wrote:
>>
>>> We have a whole TODO list of potential items for people to work on, and we
>>> have several member of this list that work for universities in some
>>> capacity, so istm we ought to give it a shot. I would think this is
>>> something that the foundation would be good to be involved in as well, as
>>> it would certainly help it all appear official. We just need to tie up
>>> the loose ends on who would be available to do the mentoring, which might
>>> need to be different people depending on the work involved, unless you
>>> think you could handle all comers Jonah? Robert Treat
>>>
>>> On Wednesday 01 June 2005 10:53, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>>>
>>>> Marc,
>>>>
>>>> If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be willing to
>>>> work with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on PostgreSQL
>>>> projects, the money can go to the group.
>>>>
>>>> If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
>>>> Development Group, I can do it under my company.
>>>>
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>
>>>> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> In case nobody has seen this:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
>>>>>
>>>>> Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to
>>>>> find a student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----
>>>>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
>>>>> (http://www.hub.org)
>>>>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
>>>>> 7615664
>>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>>>> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>>>>>
>>>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>>> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your
> joining column's datatypes do not match
>
>
>

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

Not sure about the current 'students'. I need to take a look and see
what kind of somewhat easy stuff is on the TODO (I haven't seen it in
awhile).

I like your suggestion for the mailing list.

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

>
> One concern that was raised off of this list was the steep learning
> curve to start with, to get to the point of beign able to do anything ...
>
> Do we have any 'students' that are already up to speed, enough so that
> they'd be able to accomplish something significant over a 2-3 month
> period?
>
> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
>>
>> Are there any restrictions on 'mentor groups'? For instance, could
>> we create a 'mentors' mailing list, closed subscriptions, that
>> contained those willing to actively mentor, so that those being
>> mentor'd have multiple ppl's knowledge's to feed upon?
>>
>> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>>
>>> My participation would be limited to the actual number of
>>> newcomers. I feel comfortable helping 2 or 3 people; any more than
>>> that would impact my clients and consulting time. Although, it
>>> would never hurt to have additional mentors :).
>>>
>>>
>>> Robert Treat wrote:
>>>
>>>> We have a whole TODO list of potential items for people to work on,
>>>> and we have several member of this list that work for universities
>>>> in some capacity, so istm we ought to give it a shot. I would
>>>> think this is something that the foundation would be good to be
>>>> involved in as well, as it would certainly help it all appear
>>>> official. We just need to tie up the loose ends on who would be
>>>> available to do the mentoring, which might need to be different
>>>> people depending on the work involved, unless you think you could
>>>> handle all comers Jonah? Robert Treat
>>>>
>>>> On Wednesday 01 June 2005 10:53, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Marc,
>>>>>
>>>>> If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be
>>>>> willing to
>>>>> work with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on
>>>>> PostgreSQL
>>>>> projects, the money can go to the group.
>>>>>
>>>>> If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
>>>>> Development Group, I can do it under my company.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>>
>>>>> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In case nobody has seen this:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to
>>>>>> find a student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----
>>>>>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
>>>>>> (http://www.hub.org)
>>>>>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
>>>>>> 7615664
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ---------------------------(end of
>>>>>> broadcast)---------------------------
>>>>>> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>>>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------------(end of
>>>>> broadcast)---------------------------
>>>>> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ----
>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
>> (http://www.hub.org)
>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
>> 7615664
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if
>> your
>> joining column's datatypes do not match
>>
>>
>>
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> 7615664
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if
> your
> joining column's datatypes do not match

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

>
> One concern that was raised off of this list was the steep learning curve to
> start with, to get to the point of beign able to do anything ...
>
> Do we have any 'students' that are already up to speed, enough so that they'd
> be able to accomplish something significant over a 2-3 month period?

I have a student who is already working on developing custom access method
to very large astronomical catalogues. Also, Ramy Hassan (rhassan(at)cs(dot)purdue(dot)edu)
from Purdue University is working on SP-GiST and I think his work would be
well suited for Google program.

>
> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
>>
>> Are there any restrictions on 'mentor groups'? For instance, could we
>> create a 'mentors' mailing list, closed subscriptions, that contained those
>> willing to actively mentor, so that those being mentor'd have multiple
>> ppl's knowledge's to feed upon?
>>
>> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>>
>>> My participation would be limited to the actual number of newcomers. I
>>> feel comfortable helping 2 or 3 people; any more than that would impact my
>>> clients and consulting time. Although, it would never hurt to have
>>> additional mentors :).
>>>
>>>
>>> Robert Treat wrote:
>>>
>>>> We have a whole TODO list of potential items for people to work on, and
>>>> we have several member of this list that work for universities in some
>>>> capacity, so istm we ought to give it a shot. I would think this is
>>>> something that the foundation would be good to be involved in as well, as
>>>> it would certainly help it all appear official. We just need to tie up
>>>> the loose ends on who would be available to do the mentoring, which might
>>>> need to be different people depending on the work involved, unless you
>>>> think you could handle all comers Jonah? Robert Treat
>>>>
>>>> On Wednesday 01 June 2005 10:53, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Marc,
>>>>>
>>>>> If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be willing to
>>>>> work with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on PostgreSQL
>>>>> projects, the money can go to the group.
>>>>>
>>>>> If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
>>>>> Development Group, I can do it under my company.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>>
>>>>> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In case nobody has seen this:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to
>>>>>> find a student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----
>>>>>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
>>>>>> (http://www.hub.org)
>>>>>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
>>>>>> 7615664
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ---------------------------(end of
>>>>>> broadcast)---------------------------
>>>>>> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>>>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>>>> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ----
>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your
>> joining column's datatypes do not match
>>
>>
>>
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your
> joining column's datatypes do not match
>

Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet,
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia)
Internet: oleg(at)sai(dot)msu(dot)su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> Do we have any 'students' that are already up to speed, enough so that
> they'd be able to accomplish something significant over a 2-3 month period?

Well, I suppose now might be a good time to de-lurk. Hi, my name's
Meredith, I'm a PhD student at the University of Iowa, I've been reading
pgsql-hackers for a few months now, and I'm planning on submitting a
Postgres-related project to the Summer of Code program.

My research area is data mining, and the problem I'll be focusing on for
my dissertation is that of "soft queries" -- basically, determining
ranking functions that reflect a user's preferences when searching
through a large data set. (As opposed to "hard queries", e.g., binary
filtering conditions in the WHERE clause.) Specifically, we want to
derive this function even in cases where the user can't specify it
himself (e.g., can't write an appropriate ORDER BY clause, perhaps
because he can't objectively evaluate how much he values each feature of
the data). We've developed a fairly simple user interface for this;
overall, the procedure looks like:

1. User sees a small (<6 entities) set of sample data.
2. User puts each entity into one of three categories: "preferred,"
"considered," "not preferred"
3. System trains a ranking support vector machine based on the partial
orderings of training data the user has just provided.
4. System uses this function to provide the user with a new sample
set, which the user has the option to rerank in order to retrain
the function.
5. Lather, rinse, repeat.

In our experiments, we've found that it takes at most maybe three or
four iterations to converge on a good (i.e., representative of what the
user wants) function. However, at the moment we're limited to generating
linear functions, because the kernel function that a nonlinear SVM
generates is not well suited to translating into an ORDER BY clause. A
linear SVM generates a linear weight vector, one element for each
element in a data vector -- so, if you're training on values from
myTable.foo, myTable.bar and myTable.baz, and your linear SVM gives you
a weight vector <a, b, c>, this trivially translates into

ORDER BY (a * myTable.foo + b * myTable.bar + c * myTable.baz)

If you'd like to see this in practice, feel free to check out our
demonstration setup at http://austin.cs.uiowa.edu/charun. (Source to
come; the SVM implementation we're using right now is encumbered by
restrictive licensing, so I need to detangle our code from it first.)
You'll probably notice quickly, however, that if you prefer
middle-of-the-road values, the function will heterodyne all over the
place. This is because a linear function, to be useful, requires that
the data be _linearly separable_ -- i.e., you can draw a single straight
line through the feature space to partition the data into two categories
-- but middle-of-the-road values require a nonlinear function. Thus the
desire to be able to support nonlinear kernel functions.

It is possible, but highly inconvenient, to translate certain types of
kernel functions into linear weight vectors, but in practice, I think
it'd be easier -- and more robust -- to expand PostgreSQL such that a
nonlinear kernel function can be used as the argument to an ORDER BY clause.

I've been reluctant to mention this in the past, mainly because I don't
see it as enormously useful to Postgres users as a whole; your average
user doesn't know what a support vector machine is, and while I have a
laundry list of use cases for this kind of search capability, the
Postgres end of it is more useful as support for the system as a whole
rather than a standalone Postgres feature. (As far as I can see, anyway.
I won't complain if someone has a reason why it's useful for the
ordinary user. :) Anyway, I'm submitting the proposal for the entire
system; my original plan was to suggest Google as my mentoring
organization, but I'd also be happy to work directly with the PostgreSQL
Global Development Group if there's interest.

I'm already intimately familiar with the PostgreSQL query parser thanks
to an anti-SQL-injection app that a colleague of mine and I have been
working on (of which, more later; see
http://www.sixdemonbag.org/HP2005.pdf for an overview), and am quite
comfortable with expanding it. I'm less familiar with the planner and
optimizer, and don't as yet have a terribly good feel for how expanding
the ORDER BY syntax would affect these pieces (my intuition: planner
yes, optimizer ... maybe?), but after picking apart the scanner and
parser in exhaustive detail, I feel pretty comfortable with the coding
style and how memory management works. So I wouldn't say I'm all the way
up the learning curve, but I've got a head start.

Phew. Thanks for reading. I know there are a lot of TODO items that are
high on the priority list, and I see that others here already know
students who are working on projects more closely related to those
things, so I understand entirely if y'all would prefer to work with
someone who's adding more directly useful functionality to Postgres. I'm
very glad to see the PGDG getting involved with the Summer of Code
project, and either way, I look forward to having enough free time to
start tackling various TODO items myself. :)

Cheers,
Meredith L. Patterson

Funny how things come full circle... in previous threads someone mentioned a
few low hanging fruit items, we should start there, and maybe get one of the
more hard-core hackers to go through the TODO list and mark up some other
items.

My take on the mentor thing was that the students could probably post on
-hackers if they ran into anything too tricky, though they'll need a poc for
scheduling and timelines and getting them up to speed on development
environment and such.

Incidentally I havent seen any objections, if there are none should we go
ahead and whip up an email to google? Do we want to run this through the
foundation? ISTM we would, though I don't know the full extent of what
ramifications that would have.

Robert Treat

On Wednesday 01 June 2005 15:11, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> Not sure about the current 'students'. I need to take a look and see
> what kind of somewhat easy stuff is on the TODO (I haven't seen it in
> awhile).
>
> I like your suggestion for the mailing list.
>
> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > One concern that was raised off of this list was the steep learning
> > curve to start with, to get to the point of beign able to do anything ...
> >
> > Do we have any 'students' that are already up to speed, enough so that
> > they'd be able to accomplish something significant over a 2-3 month
> > period?
> >
> > On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> >> Are there any restrictions on 'mentor groups'? For instance, could
> >> we create a 'mentors' mailing list, closed subscriptions, that
> >> contained those willing to actively mentor, so that those being
> >> mentor'd have multiple ppl's knowledge's to feed upon?
> >>
> >> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> >>> My participation would be limited to the actual number of
> >>> newcomers. I feel comfortable helping 2 or 3 people; any more than
> >>> that would impact my clients and consulting time. Although, it
> >>> would never hurt to have additional mentors :).
> >>>
> >>> Robert Treat wrote:
> >>>> We have a whole TODO list of potential items for people to work on,
> >>>> and we have several member of this list that work for universities
> >>>> in some capacity, so istm we ought to give it a shot. I would
> >>>> think this is something that the foundation would be good to be
> >>>> involved in as well, as it would certainly help it all appear
> >>>> official. We just need to tie up the loose ends on who would be
> >>>> available to do the mentoring, which might need to be different
> >>>> people depending on the work involved, unless you think you could
> >>>> handle all comers Jonah? Robert Treat
> >>>>
> >>>> On Wednesday 01 June 2005 10:53, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> >>>>> Marc,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be
> >>>>> willing to
> >>>>> work with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on
> >>>>> PostgreSQL
> >>>>> projects, the money can go to the group.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
> >>>>> Development Group, I can do it under my company.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thoughts?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> >>>>>> In case nobody has seen this:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to
> >>>>>> find a student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> ----
> >>>>>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> >>>>>> (http://www.hub.org)
> >>>>>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> >>>>>> 7615664
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> ---------------------------(end of
> >>>>>> broadcast)---------------------------
> >>>>>> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ---------------------------(end of
> >>>>> broadcast)---------------------------
> >>>>> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
> >>
> >> ----
> >> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> >> (http://www.hub.org)
> >> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> >> 7615664
> >>
> >> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> >> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if
> >> your
> >> joining column's datatypes do not match
> >
> > ----
> > Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> > (http://www.hub.org)
> > Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> > 7615664
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if
> > your
> > joining column's datatypes do not match

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

'k, since there appears to be interest, I've tried to read a bit more up
on it, specifically the FAQs ... seems simple enough, but someone else may
have found a link that I haven't ...

Basically, developer (ie. Ramy Hassan) would go to:

http://code.google.com/soc_application.html

Fill out this form and put 'Other' for Sponsor, and PostgreSQL Global
Development Group in the blank space provided ... I can't find any
specific "sponsor application form" on Google, but, again, may be missing
something ...

I've sent a note off to Google asking for more information on becoming a
mentor, will post once I hear back more ...

While waiting, for any students that are interested, can I suggest going
to the above URL, look at what is requested in preparation ...

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, Oleg Bartunov wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
>>
>> One concern that was raised off of this list was the steep learning curve
>> to start with, to get to the point of beign able to do anything ...
>>
>> Do we have any 'students' that are already up to speed, enough so that
>> they'd be able to accomplish something significant over a 2-3 month period?
>
> I have a student who is already working on developing custom access method
> to very large astronomical catalogues. Also, Ramy Hassan
> (rhassan(at)cs(dot)purdue(dot)edu)
> from Purdue University is working on SP-GiST and I think his work would be
> well suited for Google program.
>
>
>>
>> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Are there any restrictions on 'mentor groups'? For instance, could we
>>> create a 'mentors' mailing list, closed subscriptions, that contained
>>> those willing to actively mentor, so that those being mentor'd have
>>> multiple ppl's knowledge's to feed upon?
>>>
>>> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>>>
>>>> My participation would be limited to the actual number of newcomers. I
>>>> feel comfortable helping 2 or 3 people; any more than that would impact
>>>> my clients and consulting time. Although, it would never hurt to have
>>>> additional mentors :).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Robert Treat wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> We have a whole TODO list of potential items for people to work on, and
>>>>> we have several member of this list that work for universities in some
>>>>> capacity, so istm we ought to give it a shot. I would think this is
>>>>> something that the foundation would be good to be involved in as well,
>>>>> as it would certainly help it all appear official. We just need to tie
>>>>> up the loose ends on who would be available to do the mentoring, which
>>>>> might need to be different people depending on the work involved, unless
>>>>> you think you could handle all comers Jonah? Robert Treat
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wednesday 01 June 2005 10:53, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Marc,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you wanted to submit PostgreSQL to Google for this, I'd be willing
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> work with any potentials. Should someone choose to work on PostgreSQL
>>>>>> projects, the money can go to the group.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If anyone sees a problem with submitting under the PostgreSQL Global
>>>>>> Development Group, I can do it under my company.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In case nobody has seen this:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Might be something to help fun, say, the GiST stuff? Just need to
>>>>>>> find a student that could be mentor'd/directed/brought up to speed?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ----
>>>>>>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
>>>>>>> (http://www.hub.org)
>>>>>>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
>>>>>>> 7615664
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ---------------------------(end of
>>>>>>> broadcast)---------------------------
>>>>>>> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> ---------------------------(end of
>>>>>> broadcast)---------------------------
>>>>>> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> ----
>>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
>>> (http://www.hub.org)
>>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
>>> 7615664
>>>
>>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your
>>> joining column's datatypes do not match
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ----
>> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
>> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your
>> joining column's datatypes do not match
>>
>
> Regards,
> Oleg
> _____________________________________________________________
> Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet,
> Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia)
> Internet: oleg(at)sai(dot)msu(dot)su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
> phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83
>

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

On Wed, 2005-06-01 at 15:50 -0500, Meredith L. Patterson wrote:
> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > Do we have any 'students' that are already up to speed, enough so that
> > they'd be able to accomplish something significant over a 2-3 month period?
>
> Well, I suppose now might be a good time to de-lurk. Hi, my name's
> Meredith, I'm a PhD student at the University of Iowa, I've been reading
> pgsql-hackers for a few months now, and I'm planning on submitting a
> Postgres-related project to the Summer of Code program.
>
> My research area is data mining

Sounds interesting...

> I've been reluctant to mention this in the past, mainly because I don't
> see it as enormously useful to Postgres users as a whole; your average
> user doesn't know what a support vector machine is, and while I have a
> laundry list of use cases for this kind of search capability, the
> Postgres end of it is more useful as support for the system as a whole
> rather than a standalone Postgres feature.

Is it possible that you could put sufficient of the application into
PostgreSQL to genericise some features? Stonebraker's Third Wave was
*all* about putting data intensive operations closer to where the data
is stored/accessed. That definitely applies to data mining, so you are
in the right project.

What would you do AFTER you've built in ALL of the above? Why not think
of ways to lay the ground work for all of the things you'd like to do in
the future.

What can you do for other data mining hackers? How can you lay the
groundwork for others to assist your developments?

> Phew. Thanks for reading. I know there are a lot of TODO items that are
> high on the priority list, and I see that others here already know
> students who are working on projects more closely related to those
> things, so I understand entirely if y'all would prefer to work with
> someone who's adding more directly useful functionality to Postgres. I'm
> very glad to see the PGDG getting involved with the Summer of Code
> project, and either way, I look forward to having enough free time to
> start tackling various TODO items myself. :)

The project needs free-thinkers, so don't feel that you have to stick to
the TODO. Just make sure you have a very clear benefit case.

Best Regards, Simon Riggs

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Robert Treat wrote:

> Funny how things come full circle... in previous threads someone mentioned a
> few low hanging fruit items, we should start there, and maybe get one of the
> more hard-core hackers to go through the TODO list and mark up some other
> items.
>
> My take on the mentor thing was that the students could probably post on
> -hackers if they ran into anything too tricky, though they'll need a poc
> for scheduling and timelines and getting them up to speed on development
> environment and such.
>
> Incidentally I havent seen any objections, if there are none should we
> go ahead and whip up an email to google? Do we want to run this through
> the foundation? ISTM we would, though I don't know the full extent of
> what ramifications that would have.

No, the Foundation wasn't formed for this purpose, and doing something
like this through there would end up taking longer then the deadline to
pass through even if it was ...

As for the mentoring program ... my read on it is that the developer has
to make a proposal for what they wish to accomplish, that proposal goes to
the mentoring organization who then approves or rejects the proposal ...
the proposal, again, from my take, can't be simply tackling a few random
issues, but is more meant to deal with large projects that would take
someone full time to get done ... ie. the GiST rewrite or something of
similar scale ...

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

Simon Riggs wrote:
> Is it possible that you could put sufficient of the application into
> PostgreSQL to genericise some features? Stonebraker's Third Wave was
> *all* about putting data intensive operations closer to where the data
> is stored/accessed.

And just like that, a lightbulb goes off in my head.

I'd been reluctant to push the training step inside the engine, because
I couldn't come up with a good way of doing it, but now it seems so
obvious. A ranking support vector machine takes as input a series of
partial orders -- think of it as several "buckets" into which data items
are thrown. Or, if you will, a list of lists of unique identifiers. And
that would be *easy* to pass as part of a query string. I'm envisioning
a syntax like:

ORDER BY SVM linear KEY foo ((1, 2, 3), (4, 5), (6, 7, 8), (9))

So this would be a partial ordering where each number is the key (PK is
column 'foo') of some tuple in a table, and 1, 2, 3 > 4, 5 > 6, 7, 8 > 9
in terms of the user's preference.

Use that (much more human-readable than I had originally envisioned)
input to learn the actual ranking function inside the database, apply
that ranking to the results, and boom -- an ORDER BY clause extrapolated
directly from a partial ranking, with no pesky outside-the-database
learning step.

(Nonlinear kernels have some additional parameters, and tuning them can
be something of a black art, but the syntax can be extended to let
people specify them. Default values would also be necessary.)

I'll continue to think on this, but already this approach strikes me as
a lot more useful to the average user. Thanks, Simon!

Cheers,
Meredith

So, has anyone gone ahead and contacted Google yet?

Yes, been working on this since last night ...

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, Jonah H. Harris wrote:

> So, has anyone gone ahead and contacted Google yet?
>
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command
> (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org)
>
>
>

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

Cool. Thanks Marc.

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

>
> Yes, been working on this since last night ...
>
> On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
>
>> So, has anyone gone ahead and contacted Google yet?
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command
>> (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org)
>>
>>
>>
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> 7615664

Dear all ,

>
> Incidentally I havent seen any objections, if there are none should we go
> ahead and whip up an email to google? Do we want to run this through the

We must go straight away for it.

I wonder why bigies like Bruce , Tom , Josh have not responded to this yet.

To my opinion the best way to do it is make a single person
responsible for this all and let every thing be done via him from
filling the application to the end.

--
With Best Regards,
Vishal Kashyap.
Lead Software Developer,
http://saihertz.com,
http://vishalkashyap.tk

It is already being worked on ... more once we know more ...

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, Vishal Kashyap @ [SaiHertz] wrote:

> Dear all ,
>
>>
>> Incidentally I havent seen any objections, if there are none should we go
>> ahead and whip up an email to google? Do we want to run this through the
>
>
> We must go straight away for it.
>
> I wonder why bigies like Bruce , Tom , Josh have not responded to this yet.
>
> To my opinion the best way to do it is make a single person
> responsible for this all and let every thing be done via him from
> filling the application to the end.
>
> --
> With Best Regards,
> Vishal Kashyap.
> Lead Software Developer,
> http://saihertz.com,
> http://vishalkashyap.tk
>

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

> > Incidentally I havent seen any objections, if there are none should we
> > go ahead and whip up an email to google? Do we want to run this through
> > the foundation? ISTM we would, though I don't know the full extent of
> > what ramifications that would have.
>
> No, the Foundation wasn't formed for this purpose, and doing something
> like this through there would end up taking longer then the deadline to
> pass through even if it was ...

I'm a bit surprised that it would seem inappropriate to run this through
the Foundation. There's not anyone else around, aside from the
individual Core folk as themselves, that would seem to be "legally
recognizable" for this sort of purpose.

> As for the mentoring program ... my read on it is that the developer
> has to make a proposal for what they wish to accomplish, that proposal
> goes to the mentoring organization who then approves or rejects the
> proposal ... the proposal, again, from my take, can't be simply
> tackling a few random issues, but is more meant to deal with large
> projects that would take someone full time to get done ... ie. the
> GiST rewrite or something of similar scale ...

In more or less retrospect, I don't think it's reasonable to try to push
significant work items through newcomer 'students.' With the one caveat
I can think of that Neil Conway is still working on his degree, so that
it's not inconceivable that he might qualify.

The problem is that it takes enough time up front to get familiar with
the code base that the "summer of code" might be eaten up just getting
vaguely familiar with things, and not produce any perceptible results.
Note that if "real work" could take place in the fall, this could be an
entirely productive use of a summer...
--
output = reverse("moc.liamg" "@" "enworbbc")
http://linuxdatabases.info/info/slony.html
"not red, not light red, but gay-pride triangle, poodle-dress pink."
-- Seen in alt.food.sushi

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
> One concern that was raised off of this list was the steep learning
> curve to start with, to get to the point of beign able to do anything ...
>
> Do we have any 'students' that are already up to speed, enough so that
> they'd be able to accomplish something significant over a 2-3 month period?
>
>

It depends on what you mean by "up to speed," but I'm a student.

I have a project that I was previously working on (Simon Riggs called it
"Sychronized Scanning," here's a link to my first post about it:
<http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2005-02/msg00832.php> ).
It seemed promising, but I didn't finish it because of time.

I would be interested in the Summer of Code thing, I'm well introduced
to PostgreSQL (been user and fairly active follower since before 7.0),
and I am capable with C.

I don't know what the expectations are, but if Google is interested in
PostgreSQL, I would certainly talk with any mentors about the potential
project, and what the scope would be.

Regards,
Jeff Davis