[LLVMdev] Potential Google Summer of Code Applicant

[Tobias Grosser]

On 04/02/2012 05:41 AM, Patrick Edwards wrote:
> Hi, my name is Patrick Edwards, and I'm currently a CS major at Kent
> State University. I have always been interested in doing work with
> compilers and LLVM seems to be a perfect fit for me to learn more over
> the summer, and also contribute to open-source projects at the same
> time. However, while browsing through the project ideas, the only ideas
> I found accessible were the code reduction and compile with/benchmark
> the LLVM compiler. I would really love to help LLVM, as I have used C++
> in quite a few of my classes and side programs, not to mention learning
> other oddball languages as I wanted. If possible, could someone please
> point me in the right direction to contribute to LLVM in the best way I can?
>
> Thank you in advance,
> Patrick Edwards, potential GSoC applicant

Hi Patrick,

besides the open project pages of the LLVM itself [1], there are also 
the ideas list of the subprojects:

- The clang open projects list [2]
- The SAFECode open projects list [3]
- The Polly todo list [4]

As you already realized, not all of them are suiteable for summer of 
code, but some of them definitely are.

A topic I personally would think might be an interesting summer of code 
project is a clang based gnu 'indent' replacement. Here the idea from 
the clang open projects page:

"Use clang libraries to implement better versions of existing tools: 
Clang is built as a set of libraries, which means that it is possible to 
implement capabilities similar to other source language tools, improving 
them in various ways. Three examples are distcc, the delta testcase 
reduction tool, and the "indent" source reformatting tool. distcc can be 
improved to scale better and be more efficient. Delta could be faster 
and more efficient at reducing C-family programs if built on the clang 
preprocessor, indent could do proper formatting for complex C++ 
features, and it would be straight-forward to extend a clang-based 
implementation to handle simple structural rules like those in the LLVM 
coding standards."

I am not an expert in clang itself, but on the clang mailing list, you 
there are plenty of people who are. I copied Manuel, as I think he was 
already planning to work on something like this.

Cheers
Tobi

[1] http://llvm.org/OpenProjects.html
[2] http://clang.llvm.org/OpenProjects.html
[3] http://sva.cs.illinois.edu/projects.html
[4] http://polly.llvm.org/todo.html