Background

Conduit is a system we've developed at Simula for simple software installation on the main operating systems (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X). It is almost entirely written in Python. We needed a system like this to better support students attending our courses, minimizing the problems related to installing course software on different operating systems and packaging it.

Currently, Conduit is used in the INF1100 and INF3330 courses as the recommended alternative for installing the course software. Compared to other methods, such as APT on Linux and Windows Installer, it has the benefit of not being particular to an operating system. This makes a big difference to us, as we can concentrate on a single approach when supporting software installation on students' own computers; instead of one for each of the main three operating systems.

There's a lot that needs to be done on Conduit, however, before we reach our goals. We present here two ideas for Conduit-related Master's theses.

Conduit Web Portal

Conduit has a Web service already, developed with Python/Django, but it is rather primitive and only directed at software providers (developers/distributors).

What You Will Do

Design and realize a rich Web interface to Conduit's software portal, with specialized views for end users and providers of software. We'd like to see you do this by extending the current Django solution, but this is not a hard requirement.

What You Will Learn

Real-life Web development on a highly useful system.

Qualifications

Experience with developing Web applications, preferably using Django or similar frameworks (Ruby on Rails etc.).