User:Janwin

Google Summer of Code 2013 Proposal for Swathanthra Malalayalam Computing

Personal Information

Email Address                    ː jisacs1492@gmail.com
Blog URL                         ː http://techytrends.wordpress.com/
Freenode IRC Nick                ː Janvin
University and current education ː BTech Computer Science, Calicut University

Why do you want to work with the Swathanthra Malayalam Computing?

I find Swathanthra Malayalam Computing as the best way to contribute to both the open source software and my mother tongue. SMC has got a wide reach and possibilities in language processing and liberalization of information across regional boundaries. I want to enjoy the spirit of free and open source software development in a global level.

Do you have any past involvement with the Swathanthra Malayalam Computing or another open source project as a contributor?

No.I was not familiar with SMC. I haven't explored any chance to contribute to open source projects before even though I used to employ free open source software, reprogram it and learn as a hobby.

Did you participate with the past GSoC programs, if so which years, which organizations?

No. I have not participated in GSoC programs before.

Do you have other obligations between May and August ? Please note that we expect the Summer of Code to be a full time, 40 hour a week commitment

I can find time for GSoC without a fail from the end of may till July since we have our summer vacation meanwhile. In august I can find 3 hours each weekday and about 12 hours in the weekends which helps me to dedicate around 40 hours a week. Since GSoC is very important to me I can assure you my time.

Will you continue contributing/ supporting the Swathanthra Malayalam Computing after the GSoC 2013 program, if yes, which area(s), you are interested in?

I want to contribute to SMC even if you could not get me on board through GSoC. I would be glad to be a part of SMC in developing a better text to speech converter. I want to see SMC's text to speech application being used to translate free online tutorials.

Why should we choose you over other applicants?

I am a FOSS enthusiast for years and have been a part of FOSS cell in my college for the past 2 and a half years. I have taken sessions on FOSS and bash scripting for juniors. Swanthanthra Malayalam Computing will be a great platform for me to contribute more for FOSS. I have created an event notification application for our campus and am familiar with web frameworks like Django. I have used HTML and CSS templates for the Django framework. Since I am comfortable with python scripting it will help me in this project.

Proposal Description

An overview of your proposal

SILPA is being rewritten to the new framework in Flask. Several modules like soundex, Transliteration, Spellchecker, Hyphenation, Chardetails, Payyans etc have already been ported to Flask. Separating each of these functions as individual modules in python is better for the further development of each module. Templates for the individual modules have to be separated in order to accomplish this goal. Using Blueprint class in flask we can provide a separation at Flask level and share application config. Blueprint records operations to execute once an application is registered. Once we create blueprint instances we specify our template folder. It determines whether to override the module specific template or not. Our aim is to constrain the templates of a module to itself and thus make the module completely independent of others.

The need you believe it fulfills

Separating modules from SILPA allows the easy debugging and individual further improvement of a module. Otherwise each change we make to a module needs to be reflected in the common templates folder and module manager. As I suggested earlier each module in SILPA has a far reach regarding its application. Once we decompose the application into various individual modules of distinct purposes it can easily be integrated to another language application. For instance the Text to Speech module can be integrated with any web based tutorials.

Any relevant experience you have

I have used python scripting to develop a web based application . Also I am familiar with the working of JSON which had been an area of my study while using python-twilio. I am experienced in Django framework and it helps me to learn Jinja2.

How you intend to implement your proposal

The suffix and prefix patterns for each word has to be generated in Malayalam dictionary.Also inflecting and agglutinating words have to be found.Hunspell is a spell checker and program designed for languages with complex word compounding or character encoding.It uses terminal like interfaces.Hunspell algorithm can be implemented for spellchecker. Then hunspell algorithm can be implemented for spellchecker. In hunspell algorithm two files are used for spell checking.

1. A dictionary file containing list of words in malayalam.The first line of the file contains word count.Each word can optionally be followed by a '/' and flags which represents affixes.A second word separated by a slash sets the affixation.

2. An affix file which contains optional attributes.Some of these attributes are

REP - It sets a replacement table for multiple character corrections for suggestions.It is not applied for the correct word.The first REP is header which gives the number of REPs used followed by REPs from the next line.REP can be used if right word forms differs by 1 or more characters.

PFX – It defines prefix

SFX – It defines suffix

TRY – It sets change characters for suggestions.It is not applied for correct word.It suggests the right word forms

There are also options for compounding of words in hunspell.The compound header gives number of compound definitions.The words can be first,middle,last,only middle etc elements in compound words.For this flags are defined in affix file and it is used in dictionary file.

Hunspell also supports two fold suffix strippping for agglutinative languages.Single suffix stripping is extended for this purpose.It can also handle many affix classes. The Hunspell provides library routines which gives the user word-level linguistic functions : spell checking - spell() and correction -suggest() .It’s constructor needs paths of the affix and dictionary files.

We have to make these two files with necessary data for malayalam language spell checker.Suffix stripping can be extended to acheive any multi level suffix stipping.If it doesnt work in hunspell an algorithm to be implemented in python has to be found out.Help can be seeked from language communities if needed for scripting.The dictionary file is already written for silpa.The main task will be creating an affix file in hunspell for malayalam.Since malayalam is an agglutinating language spell checking program can be more complicated.

A rough timeline for your progress with phases

Duration	Description	Mile Stone
Before May 27	Before Announcement of Candidates	Familiarize with the version control system,code,documentation of spell checker module of SILPA, hunspell working and requirements of project.Try hunspell in malayalam and other languages.
May 28 – June 16	Before Official Coding Period Starts	To do self coding with python to further improve my understanding of various concepts involved.Start learning hunspell algorithm.During this period I will remain in constant touch with my mentor to be absolutely clear of my future goals.
June 17 – July 3	Official Coding Period Starts	Coding,Testing and Debugging of various features in spell checker. Starts scripting of various suffix and prefix patterns in malayalam. Start writing affix file for hunspell. Presentation of components to mentor weekly.
July 3 - July 31	Preparing for mid term evaluation	Do further scripting for inflecting and agglutinating words. Scripting for different compound words.Ask help from language communities for further scripting.Submission of files to mentor for evaluation.
Aug 1 - Aug 15	After mid term evaluation	Refine the scripting as per mentors suggestions. Scripting for multi level suffix stripping. Making changes so as to improve functionality.
August 16 - August 29	Before Final stage	Implement multi suffix stripping property. Completion of affix and dictionary files. Most of the time will be used for rigorous testing.
August 30 - September 10	Final Stage	Documentation of the project.

A buffer of one week has been kept for unpredictable delay.

Tell us something about you have created

1.Event Notifier for college Event Notifier is a web app which sends notifications in college on new events. Git hub repository of the project https://github.com/priyapappachan/eventnotifier/tree/my-remote
Blog post http://priyapappachan.wordpress.com/

Have you communicated with a potential mentor? If so who?

I couldn’t communicate with the mentor Santhosh Thottingal of my project.I’ve talked with Hrishikesh K B.