Hi Steve; thanks for your post. You're right, I should clarify. Our long-term goal is to build a simple clone of SourceForge using popular Java web app tools (Hibernate, Tapestry, Tomcat, Eclipse, Ant, JUnit, Checkstyle, etc.). The goals are:
- to allow instructors to manage undergrad group programming projects more easily
- to give students a feel for grown-up working practices (projects in industry aren't managed by mailing tarballs around; they're managed using version control and bug tracking systems, so student projects should be too)
- to create a "Minix for the 21st Century", i.e. a working example that can be taken apart in courses to show students how real systems work.
Some students made a start on the system over the summer (see
http://pyre.third-bit.com/hippo); this term's students (
http://pyre.third-bit.com/neon) are carrying on with their work, or will be once they can find their way around our existing code.
That's the big picture. Right now, I'm trying to create a rational re-implementation of core portions of the data model (users, user groups, projects, and authorization) to give next term's students as a starting point. I'd be happy to make the code available to anyone who wants to look at it---assuming anyone here is still talking to me ;-)