Abhilash Raj writes:

1. I need to discuss about the design of the idea that I want to implement. I know the rough bits but need help and comments on what I proposed. This would require views from the whole mailman-community.

This is place for that, not private consultation with the mentor. Just start spelling out your ideas, and post them here for comment as they're developed to the point you can get useful comment. And don't worry about whether you are doing it right: just do it. Sooner is better.

One reason for this approach is that as Google sees GSoC, one purpose is encouraging the student to develop his or her relationship with the community.[1] The best case is somebody who enters with several months of presence on the developer lists (but that is in no way required, it's more an "it would be nice if" example).

We actually would like have the proposals posted here, but unfortunately that tends to interfere with evaluation for several reasons. (One important one is that often several students propose similar projects, and if the proposals are public there's a very natural tendency for them to converge, making selection nearly impossible.) Now that we have the proposals in full, we'd like you to start engaging the community by posting your ideas, designs, and questions here.

It's probably best *not* to post big chunks of your proposal. Maybe the "short description" as an introduction, but after that you should pick a particular task and get the community to help you start on it.

2. Apart from the corner cases mentioned in the proposal there might be many other not caught in my eye. I would need them to be pointed out so that a solution of it can discussed and then implemented.

3. There is a lot of cryptography in this project, so I would need a more experienced view to find and remove the security loopholes.

These are more specific to your topic, but they are also best done on this list, especially the issues related to security. The advantage of the mentor system is that you have somebody who has to look at your stuff. Still, the best way is to get comments from a broad selection of developers and users.

4. Lastly since I am still a noob in programming I would need regular review on the code for the first 2-3 weeks so that I cam improve and write bug free production code.

Well, the first thing to learn is that nobody writes bug-free code. Anticipate that your code is going to be buggy, catch as many as you can systematically (I recommend Watts Humphrey's book "Introduction to the Personal Software Process", I'm sure other mentors have their favorites). Then get reviews from others (including but not limited to your mentor(s)).

Once again, what we are looking for (Richard posted as representative of the mentor team) is discussion of your plans: the pieces of the design puzzle, of course, but also your motivation for proposing the project, and your plans for advancing it.

I emphasize what Richard has already mentioned: this is not a test where you have to do everything yourself to get points.

You will be evaluated on the functionality you present to us at the midterm and final evaluations, not on whether you wrote all the code yourself. Some of the code you can borrow from existing modules, and some you can beg from others. Your mentors are going to be working on their own projects, and schedules can be adjusted to provide pieces of the puzzle you need sooner rather than later. Other experienced developers may be willing to help out. In some cases you can get parts of what you need from other students in GSoC (but this requires delicate negotiation and careful management by the mentors involved; we'll cross that bridge if we come to it).

The rest of the code you have to write, and there's a minimum (a substantial size, at that) we'll be expecting. But the more code you can get from elsewhere, the better the product you'll produce this summer!

Footnotes: [1] The others, of course, are financial support for a student getting practical experience in software development, concentrating on coding, and development of worthwhile software for the mentoring org.