[Ns-developers] Google Summer of Code 2009

[Jan Henning]

Hi List,

I`am very interested in participating in Googles SoC 2009, so I took a
look at the ns-3 wiki-page and it features a number of very
interesting project-ideas.
In particular, the Fragmentation and MTU discovery seems interesting,
also the network simulation cradle looks challenging. I`ve thought
quite a long time about which project lies in my focus of interest,
and most important, what I`am able to complete in the scheduled time
in a high quality.
My main interest is writing network-applications on a relatively
low-level (raw sockets, parsing/assembling packets, checksums etc.) in
C on Linux. But I think that this could be the critical point, since
ns-3 is mainly written in C++. What I already know about C++ covers
inheritance (and therefore virtual methods), classes/methods,
overloading and a little bit about templates but when it comes to more
advanced topics like generic algorithms, well, lets say I`am a
pedestrian rather than a race driver. Anyway, since I`am considering
myself quite experienced with C and know its pitfalls and wanted to
take a closer look at C++ anyhow I understand that as a challenge for
me to become a C++ expert which is highly motivating for me.

What I need is some evaluation from the list, first if its make sense
under these circumstances to contact the mentor and discuss the
project in deeper detail with him and if so, what the next steps are
for me. I never participated in an open-source project before (only
did some smaller projects for myself so far) and I`am quite insecure
about how to get started.

Any answer is appreciated and I hope my concern does not sound too stupid :)

Greetings, Jan