On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 at 23:32, Aaron Meurer <asmeu...@gmail.com> wrote: > > A lot of the advanced ideas are important enough that if we found > someone willing and actually able to do them, then we should make an > effort to actually find someone who could mentor them. Particularly > the ideas relating to the polys like CAD, better Groebner bases, etc.
These are good examples of badly described projects. The project goals should be much smaller and the description should be much more concrete about what is already implemented and what more can reasonably be done in the timeframe of GSOC. "Cylindrical algebraic decomposition" is far too big for a GSOC project. The project description literally says: Cylindrical algebraic decomposition - Idea -- Implement the Cylindrical algebraic decomposition algorithm -- Use CAD to do quantifier elimination -- Provide an interface for solving systems of polynomial inequalities We can't possibly expect a student in a 175hr project to do anything useful with this description. Coming fresh to the codebase and the general topic of CAD it would take 175hrs just to figure out what alternatives and prerequisites are already implemented in SymPy and what the first steps towards implementing CAD for SymPy should be. We can't expect a GSOC applicant to figure all this out for themselves as part of the project (or even before applying!). What should be listed as a project description is a much smaller subproject that helps towards the broader goal of implementing and making use of CAD. That subproject should be described by someone who has a clear idea of the steps needed in the bigger picture and is willing to mentor. Otherwise a project idea that says "Implement the Cylindrical algebraic decomposition algorithm" is worse than useless: we waste people's time by even suggesting that it is a reasonable project. -- Oscar -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAHVvXxQFLOwy9XbfViY9dQzLdYgdNqX2psQO0SrgYpxZarAY0A%40mail.gmail.com.
