I suppose occasional reading of the GSoC mailing list pays off:

I had also misread the timetable as August 18 being the final deadline to submit evaluations and code.

From what i understand the evaluation period start on the 18th and ends September 1st. All code/documentation should be done by August 31st/September 1st so that your mentor gives you a positive review. And then you have a couple of days to polish things up, perhaps write a report or presentation and send a packaged finished project to google. Am i reading this correctly?

So, basically we have a month of GSoC in front of us :)

LH's response:

Exactly.

This is good to know.  I have been laboring under the impression that coding was absolutely set to end by August 18.  In fact, this is still how the calendar looks, but considering LH directly confirmed the speculation of students, I think we've heard the absolute word of truth from as high up as we can possibly get it.

Meanwhile, with Chris' assistance, I have discovered that I've kind of gotten caught between two Shindig architectures, which was creating the confusion between identical classes to override and which ones to use.  Turns out, the first was an "old 0.7 wire format", while the other is the newer RESTful API implementation.  Obviously, the latter is what I'll be using. :P  And to get things working from the data end, overriding those three classes is indeed all that is required.  Everything will work as is.

Furthermore, another special treat for developers down the road with this particular nuance: there is a great deal of custom configuring that can be done with the look and feel of gadget rendering, not to mention the ability to add entire JavaScript handlers to the scene without affecting Shindig in any way.  Gadget CSS, use of new JavaScript libraries, and unique passkeys can all be implemented on the Joomla! side and set up to communicate with Shindig in such a way that keeping up with the latest SVN release is no trouble at all.

Yes.  These are all customizable and can be tailored to Joomla!'s specific settings, all independent of the Shindig source tree but fully integratable.  New looks and feels for the gadgets based on the active J! template, new JavaScript libraries which can be as simple as DOM styling, or as complex as AJAX should the specific J! component employ any of that...yeah.  Pretty freakin' spiffy.

Another bit of implementation will be the meta-data service to aid in the retrieving and rendering of gadgets.  This is information pertaining to the gadgets themselves, like preferred size, set user preferences, and gadget caching.  But this should be pretty simply once the main part is finished.

Anywho.  It's thundering outside (gorgeous), and I am in the middle of final exams week, and if I expect to walk down the platform on Friday to receive my bachelor's degree in Computer Science, I had better put my nose to the grindstone these next few days.  Unfortunately, it's not looking like I'll have an install ready for the August 1 magazine deadline. Sorry Amy =/

Oh by the way, I was recently given an iPhone as a graduation gift, and I have to say - I like the idea of making some sort of Joomla! XML-RPC application.  What else it would do, I'm not sure...but I'm quite positive this exceptional group of GSoC-ers could come up with something, if not now then definitely for next summer. ;)

OH.  One more thing.  As of this Friday, I will no longer have access to my GT post office box, so if the Joomla! book is on its way, I'm not sure if it will be able to get where it's supposed to go.  I have my parents' home address and my new Pittsburgh address (where I'll be after August 11) on hand if anyone needs it.  And if anyone knows in general what the status of the book is, please let me know!  It'd be great to have it :)