SoC Project: CodelessComposition

There was one project application in this area that is summarised here. This page contains the depersonalised content, which can be consolidated as necessary. The depersonalisation is for privacy reasons, credit is here due to those who spent the time writing these descriptions.

Project Title: Primitives - Components for codeless composition

Benefits to Kamaelia:

allow users to construct a parallel system graphically. The systems way of allowing components to be joined together is ideal for this. A user could stitch together their program and be able to see the execution of the code in their "multi-threaded" program, something which has previously been limited to simple "single-threaded" programs. The ability to visualize the programs execution paths may well mean it becomes easier in the future to develop components, or systems of components graphically, before compiling them down to something more optimized python functions.

Synopsis:

I believe the development of the primitive components themselves (without the graphics) could be done in a matter of minutes, particularly as Python allows the dynamic calling of methods. A general primitive component with one outbox and any number of inboxes could be designed to call a given method on whatever object was in the first of its inboxes with the first item in each of its other inboxes as arguments and putting the result in its outbox. The harder primitive programming language elements to engineer as components would be if else statements because their output is which of two pipes to pass a set of elements to next.

The visual IDE aspect of the project, for stitching the components together would take far more time. I also imagine enabling the visual IDE to display the program's execution would be the last part of the project. The IDE would work similarly to the Crocodile ICT program (shown here: http://www.crocodile-clips.com/crocodile/ict/index.jsp). Pipelines made by stitching components together could be wrapped by the IDE into mega components that carry out a given task and manipulated as one within the IDE. The most primitive components would be turned into Python code by the IDE for better efficiency.

Deliverables:

I'd expect to as I mentioned above have the non-graphical components built almost straight away. My aim after that would be to build a set of components to stitch them and other components together graphically and execute them. Wrapping components together for easier manipulation in the IDE should then be straight forward and I'd hope if I had time to have the program be able to turn groups of primitive components into single component classes not containing any sub-components. In any time I'd have left I'd aim to add anything suggested to the IDE and to allow the IDE to be able to display its execution.

Project Details:

I will develop the project in Python and use the Kamaelia system. Using the Pygame libraries for the interface.
The benefits I hope the project provides I hope I've covered above (there's 6 minutes to the deadline at the moment so I won't write any more here for now).

Project Schedule:

First week: Build primitive components and become fully acquainted with Kamaelia. Second and third week (and possibly 4th week): Build some prototypes in Pygame of the interface and familiarize myself with the techniques needed. Month two: Build and deliver version 1 of the IDE. Month three: Work on the grouping of primitive components.