Mob Hack

candidate 0001:06 CImg

Ok CImg is an open source, C++ toolkit for image processing which means you have the foundations for doing in process image recognition, comparison and other high order operations removed from practical Ruby use.

Likely the best way to start supporting really interesting imaging and computer vision work.Unfortunately it makes heavy use of macros which likely with complicate and distract us from the goal.

-1

candidate 0001:06 The Chrome V8 javascript engine

Sounds over ambitious and impractical I know. But before you start to think this is a suggestion from the edge I’ll remind you that besides Behavioral testing a javascript engine can be vary useful. Several ruby projects make use of Rhino the Java port of Firefox’s javascript engine. Johnson is a recent project that takes aim at the native firefox javascript engine, Spidermonkey and wraps it up in Ruby’s sweet love.

So ambitious, yes. Impractical, likely not. After all V8 is screamingly fast multi-threaded and just a fantastic piece of work. If you are using NodeJS then you know how amazing it is.

Still not tonight, too much to accomplish

-1

candidate 0001:05 Yet Another JSON Library. YAJL

Not the sexiest code project in the world but it has immediate practical application. Also working on an interface to a Json parser is a classic case for  C Extensions. Last time I checked most of the Dom parsers hooks into native libraries to parse xml & xsl. 

Overall this would a really proper exercise.

+1

Tiny Framebuffer library

I have had, and will have, a million uses for this. The library seems clean and easy to work with. I have some reservation about getting the data to do the tricks we want. I would expect choosing this would mean we may not have a gratifying first cut after the meeting.

-1

candidate 0001:04 Gantt Ghart Generator

Ok, so this would be useful if you wanted to use tracker and more reasonable tools but had to abide by the toolset restrictions of a brutal small-minded sadistic monster. Then yes this would be a good tool to have.

-1

candidate 0001:03 Popt

Popt…

A C library for parsing command line options. I can’t imagine this being at all a viable case core a project. Ruby is very expressing and has some great support for command line options. Still it does seem that if we found the right casse for it…

well i want to play with it for the ridiculous application it would spawn.

but

-1

candidate 0001:02 Data Structures 101

simple memory queue structure. This nebulous suggestion seems like a terrific exercise to properly understand and improve upon some of the core functions of the cloud machinery that so much of the rubysphere is enamored with. Having an exercise that low might be good, but i can’t think of being able to take it in a direction where it could have legs long after the exercise.

-1

candidate 0001:01 Shapelibs

Ok, its about time to evaluate and remove the least likely to produce a bit of compelling code by the end of an evening.

First up the shapefile maptools lib. Although being moderately complex when compared to the getopts lib. This has a pretty big payoff in that every four years the nation collects together a massive amount of data describing how we live and where we live down to describing the buildings and normal traffic patterns. A huge majority of this information is encoded in ESRI SHP files and made available via government data stores like the NYC data mine.

Just last year the city gave away 20 grand for the developer who could make the best use of the data.

And call it what you will there is also another reason to give this library a plus 1

there is an older ill maintained C Ruby extension

The only reason to not give it a plus one is perhaps its too easy. Which is why I’ll grant this lib a pass from leaving the island as long as it has to play nice with the SHPtoSVG library so we can really make some use of it later

+1

Tender lovin’s lesson in C and other useful references.

Tenderlovemaking does a nice job of introducing Ruby C extentions in this first of the c extensions series. unfortunately he never got around to finishing it up. Luckily Google has more here is a clear and easy to work with tutorial from 08 More in depth and recent a look at indifferent Hash access in c extenstions. Here is a Solid resource written by what looks like a graduate Learn the hardgroove way of C extending Pilliage and plunder has their auto test guide to C extentions,

In other words there are variety of resources out there to pickup the pickaxe and whetting your appetite for the great mob hack.

If your run into a wall hop on irc ping one of us on twitter or meetup, etc

List of hackables mobhack 0001

Here are our final candidates that we have started the day with

• Shapefile Library gives you access to huge sets of CIty wide geographic and urban imaging data
• Shapefile SVG converter
• simple memory queue structure Gleens into the architecture redis and other kv structures are built on
• Popt simple getopt influenced input parser
•  Gantt Ghart Generator who let the dot net manager in?
• Tiny Framebuffer library
• Yet Another JSON Library
• Googles javascript engine V8 
• CImg
• Olena

I pull the plug in a couple of hours