[pygame] summer of code: OSC networking proposal

[Gabe Silk <gabesilk@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone,

What follows is my preliminary gsoc proposal for the OSC networking project. I'm looking for lots of comments / feedback. Thanks everyone!

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OSC Networking for Pygame

Background
"OSC
 is often used as an alternative to the 1983 MIDI standard, 
where 
higher performance, higher resolution and a richer musical 
parameter space is desired" (Wikipedia)

In a nutshell, Open Sound
 Control (OSC) is a content format designed to 
accomodate the 
transmission of musical performance data between
computers, 
instruments, and other multimedia devices. OSC has
been applied in many areas, including software synths, robotics,
and 
distributed sound applications. Despite its popularity,
there is 
currently no implementation in Pygame. I would like to remedy that. 

Proposal
To create a simple OSC implementation (over UDP) for Pygame using the 
Python socket API. 
The goal is to provide an interface within Pygame
 to create and use OSC 
clients/servers, OSC messages and bundles, as
 well as a multiple-unicast OSC-client with 
subscription and message-filtering support.

Inspiration and 
direction will be taken from PyOSC, the "Simple OSC" implementation
by
 Holth and McChesney, the documentation available at http://opensoundcontrol.org/,
and most importantly, from my mentor and the Pygame community as a 
whole.

Example applications will be created as development 
proceeds, both as a form of 
documentation, and to facilitate 
testing. Concise tutorials will be written for 
each example application, and "user-tested" on one or more of my 
colleagues
who are relatively new to Python development, and anyone 
else in the community
who would like to participate, comment, and 
provide feedback. This will be a good
method of getting useful advice and feedback from the community.

About
 Me
My name is Gabriel Silk, and I'm a fifth-year undergraduate 
computer science student 
at the University of British Columbia in 
Vancouver, B.C. I have experience in networking, 
audio, game dev, and I'm a huge fan of open source software. My favorite
 hobby is making 
electronic music. So, I feel that Pygame's OSC 
project is a natural fit for me.

I have experience in c, Python, 
network programming (I've written a proxy server, an ftp 
client, and simple TCP-like protocol on top of UDP for coursework). 
Recently I wrote an 
on-line multiplayer game called Squabble as a 
personal side-project, with a server written 
in Java, and a client 
written in Flash. Last term I wrote a world-modeller in c++ using Ogre. 
This term, I'm working on a multi-touch, collaborative, UML diagram 
creation tool for the SMART 
Table as a course project. I'm also 
working on a web-based CMS for the BC Cancer Agency. All of 
these 
projects will be finished by the end of April, before gsoc begins. Also,
 I've worked
for Electronic Arts as well and Merck Frosst. Here's my blog: http://gabrielsilk.wordpress.com

Deliverables
a)
 Framework with OSC Server, Client, Message, Bundle and multiple-unicast
 interfaces
b) API documentation, covering every class and public method
d) At 
least three example applications, with a large coverage in terms of 
functionality demonstrated

Timeline
Week 1: Finalize 
design and intended API
Week 2-3: Implement OSC Server
Weeks 4-5: Implement OSC Client and 
Message classes, work on first example application
Week 6-7: 
Implement Bundles, complete first example application
Week 8: 
Finalize multicast API
Week 9-10: Implement multicast, complete second example application
Week
 11: System and integration testing; complete third example application
Week
 12: Finish up documentation for system and examples