Thanks for the answers guys! On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 2:00 AM, Ted Dunning <[email protected]> wrote: > Dan, > > Good idea to ping us. I didn't even see your first request. > > I think that Sebastian is correct that your thesis supervisor should be > local to your university. He is also correct that just implementing yet > another algorithm is of little interest.
Yes, you're both right. In fact, I intend to have someone form my university be my official supervisor. The thing is, I don't know anyone interested in this kind of work. That being said, I can find someone who would be willing to supervise and help me with the administrative side of things, but technically I'll probably be on my own. > On the other hand, I could definitely use some help in getting the new > clustering stuff I have done integrated into Mahout. > > So I would be willing to make a trade. Thanks Ted! Sounds great, but I have a couple of questions: > On your side: > > - you need to find an official university supervisor for the thesis Yes, I'm looking into this. > - you will need to put in a fair bit of time on the project Of course, this would be a final project after all. I want to have a great thesis and I'm willing to spend time working on it. > On my side: > > - I will provide mentor support for this project > > - I will help you write up the results by reviewing your write-ups and > suggesting structure and content. > > The benefits to you will be deep knowledge of advanced clustering > algorithms as well as practical experience in how integration like this can > happen. Could you explain a bit what working on the integration would entail? I don't want to sound ungrateful here, I definitely want to work with you, but ideally, I'd like to work *on* these advanced clustering algorithms (helping improve them maybe? overambitious?), not just integrate them. Thanks a lot! > On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 2:38 PM, Sebastian Schelter <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi Dan, >> >> I think there are two reasons why you didn't get an answer yet. >> >> The first reason is that the project is driven by volunteers and from my >> experience everyone here has lots of other things to do and usually only >> little time to spare for Mahout (unfortunately). You asked for guidance >> and mentorship of a bachelor thesis which I guess nobody can provide >> here. And IMHO this is also not the task of open source developers, your >> thesis should be supervised by someone from your university (for your >> own sake). >> >> The second reason is that it turned out over the last months that simply >> adding new algorithm implementations that are not production-tested did >> not help the project. We accepted lots of such contributions and it >> turned out that people did not maintain them or that they were of minor >> quality. That's why we choose to be more conservative with what we >> accept. It turned out that it's not that hard to implement algorithms on >> MapReduce but its hard to do this in a really efficient way that will be >> helpful for others. >> >> I really like your enthusiasm and willingness to contribute to the >> project, but I'd say there are plenty more important things to do than >> contributing a new algorithm and a bachelor thesis is probably not the >> right setting to start the work on Mahout. >> >> Nevertheless you could find a topic related to Mahout (using Mahout or >> evolving some algorithm contained in it), have it supervised by someone >> from your university and after that maybe contribute your >> findings/bugfixes/whatever back. >> >> Best, >> Sebastian >> >> On 11.10.2012 22:20, Dan Filimon wrote: >> > On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Dan Filimon <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> Hi Mahout Devs! >> >> >> >> I'm Dan Filimon, a 4th year undergrad student at Politehnica >> >> University Bucharest [1] and as part of graduating I need to work on >> >> final project. >> >> >> >> I've recently gotten very interested in AI and Machine Learning >> >> (enough to become convinced that I want to pursue a Master's in this >> >> field) but have just started learning. I'd like to work my way up to >> >> becoming a committer and as I learn more about ML and add new >> >> algorithms to Mahout. >> >> >> >> I could get a final project assigned to me by a professor, or work >> >> with a company, but I'd like to do Open Source work (I have done a bit >> >> before [2]). >> >> I'd like my final project (which includes a thesis) to be adding some >> >> (1, 2... n?) new (but well-tested) algorithms to Mahout and building >> >> an application based off them. Time-wise, the deadline for my project >> >> is sometime in July 2013. >> >> I can work on this part-time until about March and allocate more time >> >> afterwards. >> >> >> >> I think I can handle the theory (I really enjoy math and understand >> >> the basics of MapReduce framework), the working on a large code-base >> >> (I interned at Google twice, the first time even working on an >> >> open-source project [2]) and am comfortable in Java. >> >> >> >> Now, excited as I may be, the thing is I'm not sure where to start. I >> >> read around the Mahout web site, got a copy of the code, got the >> >> Mahout in Action book, got a bunch of ML books, am taking relevant >> >> classes in AI and ML at school this year... >> >> I'd like someone to help me figure out the hoops, guide my work and >> mentor me. >> >> I know this is asking a lot since I haven't actually _done_ anything >> >> for this project, but please... any volunteers? :) >> >> >> >> Thank you! >> >> >> >> [1] http://acs.pub.ro/index.php?site=prezentation&lg=english >> >> [2] https://github.com/dfilimon >> >> [3] http://code.google.com/p/sfntly/ >> > >> > Ping! >> > Also, for more info, my LinkedIn page is [1]. :) >> > >> > At least suggestions? Should I be taking a different approach here? >> > Try submitting some patches before asking again? Learning more first? >> > >> > [1] http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dan-filimon/23/845/540 >> > >> >>
