GSoC 2015 Application Sudheesh Singanamalla: Astropy Revamp astropython.org web site

Python Software Foundation

Sub-organization information: Astropy

Student Information

Name: Sudheesh Singanamalla
Email: sudheesh95@gmail.com
Telephone: +91-9642491155
Time zone: GMT + 05:30
IRC handle including network:

• ShellHacker (moznet)
  
• ShellHacker (freenode)
  

Source control username(s):

• Github: @sudheesh001
  
• Twitter: @sudheesh001
  

Any other ways we can reach you: Facebook

• Facebook: @sudheesh001

Home Page(s): http://www.sudheesh.info/
Blog(s): http://theirregularview.blogspot.in, http://theopenweb.blogspot.in/
GSoC Blog RSS feed:

• http://theirregularview.blogspot.in/feeds/posts/default
• http://theopenweb.blogspot.in/feeds/posts/default

University Information

University: National Institute of Technology, Warangal
Major: Computer Science and Engineering
Current Year and Expected Graduation date: 3rd year, 2016
Degree (e.g. BSc, PhD): B.Tech

Project Proposal Information

Proposal Title

Revamp the existing Astropython.org website

Proposal Abstract

A website is the main face of the project which is the knowledge base where people understand about the project, learn and see the resources and consider a chance to join the community of growing developers and contribute back to the project. It helps reach a wider audience and a well designed website always attracts more users thus increasing the users and the chance of providing feedback and patches to the project.

Proposal Detailed Description/Timeline (*)

To build the website, the following technologies and frameworks would be considered for development.

• Python Django / Flask framework
• Bootstrap CSS
• jQuery
• MySQL / MariaDB
• Disqus (For comments on posts and engaging with the community members)

The website should be easily extendible and most easily be converted for usage by other organizations too, hence the best would be to follow a modular design while at the same time keeping the website UI parameters as constants such as website name, logo, header logo etc.., so that it could be easily customizable and maintainable in the long run.

Required functionality to be ported from the existing website is:

• Tag and word cloud
• Recent activity on the website
• List of resources and an easy way for community members to add new resources for approval
• Easy method for admins to add new resources to the resources list
• Atom feed
• Featured resources
• Forums
• Easily add tutorials and other learning resources by admins and by community members subject to approval
• Snippets of code shared, implement github gist as an enhancement for sharing code with more ease, another possibility is to use highlight.js for syntax highlighting of code in the pre or the code tags
• Allow community members to use a WYSIWYG editor for posting the tutorials / content
• Shift from Bloog blog system using Google app engine to Django and MariaDB while using Google resources.
• Implement Google OAuth for logging in and registering to the website.
• Added to the above current functionality, we could also support a blog planet which shares the blogs that many astronomers and pythonistas write at a single location thus increasing the total outreach of the developers and evangelists who blog about astronomy and python. Similar to Mozilla Planet / Fedora planet where the blogs are shared for a validated community of members. This could be integrated directly into the website itself rather than keeping a separate standalone module.

A rough timeline to bring the application online in weeks are:

1. A well designed Landing page for the astropython community
2. Implement an easy method to add resources and list resources
3. Implement OAuth and Signup / Login features and group policies i.e. admin, moderator, community member
4. Implement forums
5. Implement comments integration with the posts made
6. Implement the tutorials listing and adding tutorials by all group members with the required authentication operations
7. Implement Planet blog system for sharing blogs through a common point
8. Implement code snippet sharing with github gist and also using regular pre tags with highlight js for syntax highlighting
9. Refactor code for easier maintainability and bug fixes.

Link to a patch/code sample, preferably one you have submitted to your sub-org

https://github.com/astropy/astropy.github.com/pull/43
https://github.com/astropy/astropy.github.com/pull/53
https://github.com/astropy/astropy.github.com/pull/54
https://github.com/astropy/astropy.github.com/pull/44

Other Schedule Information

My exams end on the 5th of May 2015 and I would be available from the 7th May 2015 to work for upto 35-40 hours a week on the application. I do not have any other activities during the period and would be dedicated to maintain the application and develop on it.

Yes, I've applied to Helikar Lab from University of Nebraska and to FOSSASIA to the loklak project.