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docs: Update main GSoC page.

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@@ -12,19 +12,22 @@ how to apply](./apply.md)** to a Zulip outreach program. As noted in the guide:
## Project size
GSoC offers two project size options: 175 hours and 350 hours. We have
designed all our projects to have incremental milestones that can be
completed throughout the program. Consequently, Zulip projects
described below are generally compatible with either project size. Of
course, the amount of progress you will be expected to make depends on
whether you are doing a 175-hour or 350-hour project.
We have designed all our projects to have incremental milestones that can be
completed throughout the program. Consequently, Zulip projects described below
are generally compatible with both large-sized (350 hours) and medium-sized (175
hours) projects. Of course, the amount of progress you will be expected to make
depends on whether you are doing a 175-hour or 350-hour project. Because it
takes significant time investment to learn how to contribute complex features to
Zulip's codebase, we are not planning to offer small-size projects.
It's also important to understand that how much progress one can
accomplish over the course of the summer is as much a function of the
project as of the contributor. Contributors who learn to consistently
package their work into [reviewable pull
requests](../contributing/reviewable-prs.md) tend to accomplish the
most during GSoC.
Contributors who master the art of consistently packaging their work
into correct, [reviewable pull
requests](../contributing/reviewable-prs.md) are able to make major
improvements to the Zulip app. If you pay attention to the contributor
guidelines, carefully review your own work before asking anyone else
for review, take the time to clearly communicate your changes, and
apply the feedback you receive to your next contribution, you'll be
amazed at what you can accomplish.
## Focus areas
@@ -53,7 +56,100 @@ problems in one part of the Zulip project that we'd love to improve.
### Full stack and web frontend focused projects
Code: [github.com/zulip/zulip](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/) -- Python,
Django, JavaScript, and CSS.
Django, TypeScript/JavaScript, and CSS.
- **Cluster of priority features**. Implement a cluster of new full
stack features for Zulip. The [high priority
label](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22priority%3A+high%22)
documents hundreds of issues that we've identified as important to
the project. A great project can be 3-5 significant features around
a theme (often, but not necessarily, an [area
label](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/labels); the goal will be to
implement and get fully merged a cluster of features with a
meaningful impact on the project. Zulip has a lot of half-finished
PRs, so some features might be completed by reading, understanding,
rebasing, and reviving an existing pull request. 175 or 350
hours; difficulty will vary. **Skills required**: Depends on the
features; Tim Abbott will help you select an appropriate cluster
once we've gotten to know you and your strengths through your getting
involved in the project.
Experts: Varies with project area.
- **Complete some unfinished projects**. This is a variant of the
previous project idea category, but focused on projects with
significant existing work to start from and polish, rather than
projects that have not been seriously attempted previously.
Recent sweeps through the Zulip server and web app tracker have
identified about 100 older pull requests where a previous
contributor (sometimes via GSoC!) did significant work towards
something valuable, and there's significant feedback from
maintainers, but the project was never finished, and requires
significant further effort from a new contributor in order to
progress. These are tracked via the [completion candidate
label][completion-candidate]. One of our goals for this summer's
GSoC is to complete many of these issues. Start by picking something
that's interesting to you and you feel you have the skills required
to complete, reading the code and the feedback, and then creating
your own PR for the issue, doing your own careful testing and
cross-linking the original work. Remember to credit the original
contributor [as documented in our commit
guidelines](../contributing/commit-discipline.md). We expect to have
a more detailed guide on this process available this Spring.
**Skills required**: Varies with project; a common skill will be
good reading comprehension and organization/communication skills, to
walk maintainers through how you resolved problems, addressed any
pending feedback on the previous PR, and your understanding of the
outstanding questions for a given project. Taking the time to get
really good at resolving merge conflicts is likely to be valuable
here as well.
Experts: Varies with project area.
[completion-candidate]: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Apr+label%3A%22completion+candidate%22
- Help **migrate our JavaScript codebase to Typescript**. Zulip is in
the process of porting the main web app JavaScript codebase to
TypeScript; at present, about 40% of the project is written in
TypeScript. We've resolved most of the roadblocks to completing this
migration, so it's mostly a matter of carefully translating modules,
putting in the effort with preparatory commits to make it any
refactoring easy to verify. Our goal is to leave the resulting code
more readable than it was before, always test the module works after
the migration, and avoid introducing logic bugs during this large
refactor. [This topic in the Zulip development
community][typescript-migration] is a good place to coordinate work
on this project. Multiple students are possible; 175 or 350 hours;
difficult. **Skills required**: TypeScript and refactoring
expertise; we're specifically interested in students who are a type
theory nerd and are invested in writing types precisely (Often using
[Zod](https://zod.dev/) to parse and verify data received from the
server) and checking their work carefully.
Experts: Zixuan James Li, Evy Kassirer, Anders Kaseorg
[typescript-migration]: https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/6-frontend/topic/typescript.20migration
- Migrate server's Python codebase from the legacy
`@has_request_variables` decorator to the new `@typed_endpoint`
decorator, and update our contributor documentation to recommend the
new system. The `@typed_endpoint` framework uses [Pydantic
V2](https://docs.pydantic.dev/latest/) in order to better express
how we want to parse API requests and turn them into fully typed
Python objects. **Skills required**: A good understanding of the
Python 3 / mypy type system and Pydantic 2, and the ability to
efficiently read Python code and write clear, structured commits. No
prior Pydantic experience required, but please take the time to go
through the Pydantic upstream tutorials and skim all the existing
endpoints using `typed_endpoint` before doing your first Zulip
changes (likely to migrate a smaller views file to the new
framework; one commit per smaller file is likely to be a good
structure). See the last commits from [the new framework's main
PR](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/pull/26365) for examples of
well-written migration commits.
Expert: Zixuan James Li, Anders Kaseorg
- Contribute to Zulip's [**migration to user groups for
permissions**][user-group-permissions]. This migration is intended to replace
@@ -72,83 +168,53 @@ Django, JavaScript, and CSS.
Attention to detail around code reuse/duplication, thoughtful testing, and
splitting large migrations into reviewable chunks.
Experts: Sahil Batra
- Improve the framework and UI in **Zulip's overlays for managing
streams and groups**. These two components have very parallel design
patterns and implementations (the groups one is quite new!). Coupled
with the user groups permissions migration, the goal of this project
is to make these important settings panels ergonomic for the large
number of new settings that we expect to migrate or add via the
groups migration. See the [user groups
settings][group-settings-issues] and [stream
settings][stream-settings-issues] area labels for starter projects.
Experts: Purushottam Tiwari, Sahil Batra
[group-settings-issues]: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22area%3A+settings+%28user+groups%29%22
[stream-settings-issues]: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22area%3A+stream+settings%22
[user-group-permissions]: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/19525
[organization-settings-label]: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22area%3A+settings+%28admin%2Forg%29%22
- Help **migrate our JavaScript codebase to Typescript**. Zulip is in the process of
porting the main web app JavaScript codebase to TypeScript; at present we've
done much of the necessary tooling setup, and about 8% of lines have been
migrated (mostly in libraries used widely); the goal for this project will be
to get that to ~75%. [This topic in the Zulip development
community][typescript-migration] is a good place to coordinate work on this
project. Multiple students are possible; 175 or 350 hours; difficult.
**Skills required**: TypeScript and refactoring expertise; we're specifically
interested in students who are a type theory nerd and are invested in writing
types precisely and checking their work carefully.
- Migrate Zulip's **[direct message recipient data
structures](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/25713)** to a new
model with better performance characteristics and that more
importantly enables personal settings associated with a direct
message conversation, and add several settings (see the linked
issues) enabled by that infrastructure work. **Skills required**:
This project will be deep Python 3/PostgreSQL work. Concretely,
challenging parts of this project include thinking about races and
database transactions, writing database migrations intended to be
run live at scale, complex internal refactors, and carefully
verifying the indexes used by migrated database queries.
Experts: Zixuan James Li, Priyank Patel, Anders Kaseorg
Experts: Tim Abbott, Mateusz Mandera, Prakhar Pratyush
[typescript-migration]: https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/6-frontend/topic/typescript.20migration
- Add the core infrastructure for **topic-based permissions and settings**
like [pinned topics](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/19483)
and [read-only topics](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/26944),
and then build some of those settings. This project will be a
mixture of Python 3/PostgreSQL work, including thinking about
database transactions and races, writing database migrations
intended to be run live at scale, and complex logic to handle moving
messages correctly in the context of these settings, including
significant changes to the Zulip API and API documentation.
- **Add an Inbox view** to the web app. We intend to add a new
home screen option for the Zulip web application that works like
the mobile app's home screen -- showing just topics containing
unread messages, in an organized fashion, in the web app's center
pane. Details are available in the
[issue](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/22189) and a [draft pull
request](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/pull/22408) with prototyping
towards this was done in GSoC 2022. The goal for this project would be
to extract preparatory refactoring changes to make it nicely
parallel to the similar "Recent conversations" panel so that it can be
merged in a maintainable fashion, work with the community to
integrate those changes, complete the Inbox feature through being
merged, and then spend the remainder of the summer polishing it. 175
or 350 hours; moderate difficulty. **Skills required**: JavaScript,
CSS, and reading and understanding a complex code path.
**Skills required**: A high level of fluency with writing readable
Python 3 and thinking about corner cases.
Experts: Aman Agrawal, Shlok Patel
- **Extended notification settings**. Extend Zulip's powerful
notification settings model to support additional configuration
options. The top priorities in this area are [unmuting topics in
muted streams](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/2517) and
[following a topic](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/6027);
these are two of the 5 most requested features for the Zulip project
overall. For this project, one will likely want to start with some
simpler issues in the [notifications (messages)
area][notifications-messages] in order to get familiarity with the
code paths in question. There is enough to do in this project that
we could have two students working in this area. 175 or 350 hours;
moderate difficulty. **Skills required**: Python and JavaScript,
with a bit of CSS, database design, and other aspects of full-stack
feature development. Attention to detail, thinking through subtle
corner cases, designing good abstractions to help ensure
correctness, and writing tests to verify correct behavior in them
will be important for this work.
Experts: Abhijeet Bodas, Ryan Rehman
[notifications-messages]: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/labels/area%3A%20notifications%20%28messages%29
- **Cluster of priority features**. Implement a cluster of new full
stack features for Zulip. The [high priority
label](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22priority%3A+high%22)
documents hundreds of issues that we've identified as important to
the project. A great project can be 3-5 significant features around
a theme (often, but not necessarily, an [area
label](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/labels); the goal will be to
implement and get fully merged a cluster of features with a
meaningful impact on the project. Zulip has a lot of half-finished
PRs, so some features might be completed by reading, understanding,
rebasing, and reviving an existing pull request. 175 or 350
hours; difficulty will vary. **Skills required**: Depends on the
features; Tim Abbott will help you select an appropriate cluster
once we've gotten to know you and your strengths through your getting
involved in the project.
Experts: it depends
Experts: Tim Abbott, Prakhar Pratyush
- Zulip's [**REST API documentation**](https://zulip.com/api), which is an
important resource for any organization integrating with Zulip, as
@@ -187,7 +253,7 @@ Django, JavaScript, and CSS.
small, clean improvements to the Zulip UI (whether logged-in or logged-out
pages).
Experts: Aman Agrawal, Alya Abbott
Experts: Aman Agrawal, Karl Stolley, Alya Abbott
[redesign-label]: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3Aredesign
@@ -206,7 +272,7 @@ Django, JavaScript, and CSS.
[performance label][perf-label] may be helpful reading for the
backend part of this.
Experts: Tim Abbott, Yash RE
Experts: Tim Abbott
[perf-label]: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/labels/area%3A%20performance
@@ -223,7 +289,7 @@ Django, JavaScript, and CSS.
do careful manual testing of third-party products. Fluent English, usability
sense and/or technical writing skills are all pluses.
Expert: Zixuan Li
Experts: Zixuan James Li, Lauryn Menard
- **Make Zulip integrations easier for nontechnical users to set up**.
This includes adding a backend permissions system for managing bot
@@ -245,7 +311,7 @@ Django, JavaScript, and CSS.
has a bunch of good starter issues to demonstrate your skills if
you're interested in this area.
Expert: Zixuan James Li
Experts: Zixuan James Li, Lauryn Menard
[all-settings-issues]: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22area%3A+settings+%28admin%2Forg%29%22%2C%22area%3A+settings+%28user%29%22%2C%22area%3A+stream+settings%22%2C%22area%3A+settings+UI%22