This year’s list of GSoC projects has been published, and the sheer volume is astounding. Different projects will appeal to different people, but here are some of the efforts that jumped out at me (most interesting to least interesting):
- Explore and implement JDK7 InvokeDynamic (Mozilla Rhino): This could be very sweet. Rhino really does need some optimization TLC. I didn’t see any similar projects from the JRuby or Groovy guys, but I’m hoping it’s because they’ve already done the legwork.
- Run as … Cloud Application (Eclipse): Very cool idea, it’ll be interesting to see what the implementation looks like and how much time this can realistically save developers working with EC2.
- Develop fluent API / facade to HttpClient: I’m not a big fan of the HttpClient API… mainly because doing simple things can quickly become inordinately complex. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with here.
- Rewrite the Groovy grammar to Antlr 3: I just find this interesting because I use both of these projects…
- Eclipse WTP based Tapestry visual editor project: I’ve got a soft spot for Tapestry, being an (inactive) committer and all
- Checking Java Annotations: Makes me think of the compile-time Optional checks in the recently-announced Ceylon language. I’m just not sure how willing people will be to litter their code with annotations, regardless of the theoretical benefits.
- Creation of a WebCL add-on (Firefox): Just weird… what’s the real-world use case for this? Maybe someone can enlighten me.
- Develop WebSocket binding for Apache Tuscany: When are they going to finalize the WebSocket protocol spec? Do they realize that everyone and their brother is busy implementing already?
- EMF – ProtocolBuffer Serialization: I’m not an Eclipse geek, but I am moderately interested in serialization
- Replacing the old regex implementation (FreeBSD): This sounds like it would be fun. Well-defined scope, far-reaching effects.
- C++0x Lambda Functions for Clang: I dabbled in C++ for exactly one week, but it’s still sort of interesting to watch a language older than Java (!) evolve.
This list is so subjective… does anyone think I’m missing something really cool?
