[[!meta title="GSoC/Student Guidelines"]]
[[!meta author="James Bursa"]]
[[!meta date="2009-05-27T01:13:40Z"]]


[[!toc]] This page details some of
the things students thinking of applying to the NetSurf Project during
the Google Summer of Code 2009 should know, do, and keep in mind.

Read the section at the top of our ideas page
---------------------------------------------

It has all sorts of details and advice for students interested in
working with NetSurf for Google Summer of Code.

Build NetSurf and play with it for a while
------------------------------------------

Building NetSurf should be quite easy. You should get the source with
Subversion, as described [on the developer
pages](http://www.netsurf-browser.org/documentation/develop#Subversion).
Don't download a tarball from the websvn interface: it's broken. If you
have any trouble building it, ask on \#netsurf. The only common gotcha
is obtaining the lemon parser generator, it only appears to be Debian
and Ubuntu who package it separately. Fedora, specifically, builds it
during the creation of the SQLite packages, but then throws it away!
Fortunately, it's very trivial to build yourself: just ask Google for
"lemon parser generator".

Explore the NetSurf website
---------------------------

There's loads of background information, documentation, and other juicy
tidbits on our main website. Explore it thoroughly. Find it at
[www.netsurf-browser.org](http://www.netsurf-browser.org/).

We have a commitment to support RISC OS
---------------------------------------

You've most likely not heard of RISC OS. It's possible by the end of
your work with us you'll wish you never had. We have a history of
supporting RISC OS (it was our first platform) and we have a commitment
to continue doing so. Anything you write that's platform agnostic should
work well on RISC OS. See Caveat RISC OS for a list of gotchas.

Read what documentation exists
------------------------------

There isn't currently much documentation for NetSurf's source code, but
it's all well worth reading. Start with the documents in Subversion.

Remember, we're British
-----------------------

Well, in the most part, anyway. We consider tea, beer and curry all more
important than NetSurf. We have a seemingly unnatural fascination with
the weather. Don't be surprised by this. Also, our source code has an
(unwritten, mostly) rule that things should be spelt in British English.
So colour rather than color, etc.

Please don't cut corners in your communications
-----------------------------------------------

Contractions like **u** for **you** in emails and IRC conversation make
us cringe. Please avoid!