[gentoo-soc] Looking for a mentor for a Portage SOC Project

[Colleen Josephson]

I'm interested in expanding the Portage "tags" idea listed on the wiki.
To make it SOC-worthy, it obviously needs to be expanded.

I have thought of a few possibilities:
-Integrate eix into Portage as a replacement to search
-Add a Debian-apt style autocomplete
-Add a flag to force the removal of config files when removing a package, if
desired
-Add a feature that lists which commands were installed after merging a
package
e.g. after installing net-tools successfully, emerge would say:
"Commands in net-tools: arp, hostname, ifconfig, ipmaddr, iptunnel,
mii-tool, nameif, netstat, plipconfig, rarp, route and slattach"
For packages that install something in /etc/init.d, it would list how to
start it: e.g. "To start service, run '/etc/init.d/servicename start'"
It would also be nice to have the ability to look this up to see the
commands associated with an already installed package:
e.g. "emerge --list-commands packagename" or something similar.

I am trying to determine whether or not these features are enough to fill a
summer, or if I need more.
There are 14 weeks in SOC, 13 weeks of coding if I leave the last week for
polishing things.
I'm thinking: 3 weeks for eix integration, 1-2 weeks for tags, 1 week for
the --remove-config flag, 2-3 weeks for the autocomplete, and 4 weeks for
the "commands installed" feature.
It looks like I need 1 more "agenda item" to fill the summer. Any
suggestions?

Do these timeframes sound reasonable? I have 3-4 years of coding experience,
with 2 years of Python.

I'm in need of a mentor ASAP so I can get feedback while writing up my
proposal, and have somebody point me to a good bugfix to do.

--
Colleen Josephson
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Class of 2013