[MonoDevelop] Want to improve monodevelop productivity features for GSoC 2009

[Michael Hutchinson]

2009/3/23 Anirudh <anirudh at anirudhsanjeev.org>:
> Hi,
>
> I'm new to monodevelop, and would like to help improve it as part of the
> Google summer of code program. I want to try and add several simple and
> smaller features to the IDE to make development more productive and
> enjoyable. I'm taking a few ideas from the "Top ten resharper features"
> thread, and want to implement as many deliverables and contribute to the
> mono community in the long term, because I see the monodevelop platform as
> something I will be writing a lot of code on in the near future, and want to
> get a good grip on it and see if I can help.
>
> Ideas:
> 1. Basic refactoring support like:
>   (a) renaming all instances of a symbol over a namespace(something more
> robust than find and replace), with previews and diffs like it's done in
> eclipse

We already have precise rename (though performance is dire) and Mike
Krüger has started on a preview feature for this.

>   (b) Extract codeblock into method, extract constants from strings, etc.
>   (c) Anything else you can suggest

There are a large number of refactoring that are possible. The
challenge is integrating these with the existing infrastructure.

> 2. Preliminary warnings while the code is being written, possible type
> mismatches, symbols out of scope, symbols not found, etc.
>
> 3. Basic interface for viewing and possibly commenting on bugzilla and trac
> bug tracking systems using xml-rpc.

TBH, this could be a SoC project by itself.

> 4. Marking warnings, errors as little marks next to the scroll bars, based
> on their relative position in the document.

That would be a cute hack :)

> 5. Anything else you suggest
>
> I've got a good deal of programming experience in college, though I'm
> completely self taught. I have good credentials including summer internships
> in Google and Microsoft Research. Please give me feedback on these ideas or
> suggest something else I could work on.

Take a look at http://www.mono-project.com/StudentProjects#MonoDevelop
for some project suggestions. All of the things you've suggested are
good and useful, but the refactoring ones would require close
coordination with other people working on these areas.

You're welcome to submit multiple proposals and to propose things that
aren't on the list. You can also combine smaller tasks into a single
proposal. We can make suggestions to improve specific proposals once
they've been submitted, so don't worry too much about making it
perfect before you submit.

-- 
Michael Hutchinson
http://mjhutchinson.com