{"thread":{"id":"33307","subject":"Git and GSoC 2013","startedAt":"2013-03-27T18:34:11Z","lastAt":"2013-03-29T04:57:28Z","messageCount":8,"participants":["Jeff King","Jonathan Nieder","Christian Couder","Ramkumar Ramachandra","Junio C Hamano"],"isPatch":false,"patchVersion":null,"patchTotal":null},"messages":[{"id":"212425","messageId":"20130327183410.GA26066@sigill.intra.peff.net","threadId":"33307","inReplyTo":null,"subject":"Git and GSoC 2013","fromName":"Jeff King","fromEmail":"peff@peff.net","sentAt":"2013-03-27T18:34:11Z","receivedAt":"2013-03-27T18:34:11Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peff@peff.net","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/45925?v=4"},"body":"There was a big thread about a month ago on whether Git should do Google\nSummer of Code this year[1].\n\nSome people seemed in favor, and some not. The deadline for git to apply\nto GSoC is March 29 (this Friday) at 19:00 UTC. I am willing to act as\nthe admin again if list consensus is that we should do it. But my point\nin sending this email is not to say \"yes, we should definitely apply\";\nit is to give people on both sides one more chance to make their points\nand come to a conclusion before the deadline. I.e., I did not want the\ndecision to be made for us because people were not aware of the\ndeadline.\n\nIn my opinion, a lot of the issues come down to project selection; one\nthing that seemed to come up in the thread was that projects are often\nnot scoped appropriately to get fully merged by the end of the summer. I\nthink the much smaller projects done by Matthieu Moy's summer students\nin past years have been very successful _because_ they are of a size\nmuch closer to patch series done by normal contributors. I realize that\nthe GSoC time-frame is longer, but I think it's again a matter of\nscoping; one large project that tries to merge at the end of the summer\nis never going to work. It must be broken down into a series of\nreviewable steps, and those steps need to be reviewed and merged\nthroughout the summer, just like contributions from regular\ncontributors.\n\nHand in hand with that, I think we need to treat students more like\nregular contributors: discussion on-list, patches reviewed and revised\non-list, etc. And all of that happening throughout the summer. Coding is\nonly part of being involved in open-source, and traditionally the\nstudents have focused on the code and not on the process of interacting\nwith the community and shepherding their changes through to \"master\".\n\nLooking over the proposed project page, I am not that excited about any\nof them (including ones I have written for past years) as being both\nscoped appropriately and interesting/useful for students and for the\nproject. I think if people want to do GSoC, we really need to make a\ncommitment to smaller-scoped projects, and to getting students more\ninvolved in the \"regular\" process of patch submission. The obvious first\nstep to that is revising the Ideas list to either have smaller projects,\nor to break larger ones into more manageable pieces. Unless that\nhappens, I don't think it's worth applying.\n\nAnd if we do apply and get accepted, I think we should look carefully at\nthe proposals that we select, and be very picky about students and\nprojects that will fit in the summer scope.\n\nI realize that there is only about 48 hours until the deadline, which is\nnot much. But I am willing to work on the application materials if\npeople can agree on a reasonable set of proposed projects[2].\n\n-Peff\n\n[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/216485\n\n[2] I have always hoped for students who would submit their own project\n proposals, independent of anything we suggest. After all, that is\n how things happen naturally in open source; contributors scratch\n their own itches. And that is part of why the ideas I post are often\n vague and try to describe a problem rather than a solution. But in\n all our years of GSoC, I recall very few cases of students proposing\n their own projects, and even fewer of them being successful. So I\n have kind of given up hope that we would get any proposal that is\n not spelled out on our ideas page.\n"},{"id":"212429","messageId":"20130327185248.GE28148@google.com","threadId":"33307","inReplyTo":"20130327183410.GA26066@sigill.intra.peff.net","subject":"Re: Git and GSoC 2013","fromName":"Jonathan Nieder","fromEmail":"jrnieder@gmail.com","sentAt":"2013-03-27T18:52:48Z","receivedAt":"2013-03-27T18:52:48Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"jrnieder@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/281595?v=4"},"body":"Jeff King wrote:\n\n> There was a big thread about a month ago on whether Git should do Google\n> Summer of Code this year[1].\n[...]\n> In my opinion, a lot of the issues come down to project selection;\n\nLet me throw in some other issues. :)\n\n * I think the git project has been very disorganized in vetting\n candidate students. Other organizations have formal requirements\n (for example, \"must submit at least one properly formatted patch to\n qualify\") but we seem to rely on a candidate's good sense,\n independence, and general sense of trustworthiness without\n providing guidance beyond that.\n\n At first glance that wouldn't seem to be a problem --- the accepted\n students have been very good anyway --- but I think that if we\n could communicate more clearly what we need, we might find there\n are more qualified students that we have been missing, and\n promising students might end up working a little in advance of\n GSoC to adapt themselves to the project.\n\n * Similarly, we are not very good at making clear the expectations\n for students during the program and making sure they are met. At\n least I know I was lousy about this as a mentor.\n\n For example, students delay too long before posting patches\n on-list and do not ask for help quickly when they are stuck. By\n the end of the summer they may start to get a sense of the usual\n contribution workflow when they could have been more effective\n by following it from the start.\n\n Some organizations require (as a non-negotiable rule) regular blog\n posts from their students, as a way of advertising to others what\n work they are doing and how to help them out. That could help\n here. \n\n * We didn't plan in advance for \"What happens when summer ends and\n the students don't have free time any more?\"\n\n * We don't advertise any good recourse available to students if a\n mentor is unexpectedly too busy or hard to contact. I don't know\n if that's happened in practice.\n\nMatthieu Moy's summer projects worked better in all these respects, I\nthink.\n\nI don't think we should apply. Better to take a break and prepare for\nnext time.\n\nMy two cents,\nJonathan\n"},{"id":"212464","messageId":"CAP8UFD1CjfJ8wM-htX8SOOveAt8zQ+qBRk_P016Y57jWnt6sCw@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"33307","inReplyTo":"20130327185248.GE28148@google.com","subject":"Re: Git and GSoC 2013","fromName":"Christian Couder","fromEmail":"christian.couder@gmail.com","sentAt":"2013-03-27T22:15:39Z","receivedAt":"2013-03-27T22:15:39Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"christian.couder@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/208954?v=4"},"body":"On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 7:52 PM, Jonathan Nieder wrote:\n> Jeff King wrote:\n>\n>> There was a big thread about a month ago on whether Git should do Google\n>> Summer of Code this year[1].\n\nI think we should do it.\n\nIt looks strange to me to say that students are great and at the same\ntime that we should not do it.\n\nLet's give them and us one more chance do to well. This is the only\nway we can improve.\n\nBest regards,\nChristian.\n"},{"id":"212527","messageId":"CALkWK0m7mq5OT1ej5rMi=RC9Crakc1SN5BcDB+PM0yYW+HcECg@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"33307","inReplyTo":"20130327183410.GA26066@sigill.intra.peff.net","subject":"Re: Git and GSoC 2013","fromName":"Ramkumar Ramachandra","fromEmail":"artagnon@gmail.com","sentAt":"2013-03-28T15:17:40Z","receivedAt":"2013-03-28T15:17:40Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"r@artagnon.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/37226?v=4"},"body":"Jeff King wrote:\n> There was a big thread about a month ago on whether Git should do Google\n> Summer of Code this year[1].\n\nTake only one or two students and get the entire community involved in\nlearning from the GSoC experience, so we can do a bigger one next\nyear.\n"},{"id":"212547","messageId":"7vtxnvv5gx.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org","threadId":"33307","inReplyTo":"CAP8UFD1CjfJ8wM-htX8SOOveAt8zQ+qBRk_P016Y57jWnt6sCw@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: Git and GSoC 2013","fromName":"Junio C Hamano","fromEmail":"gitster@pobox.com","sentAt":"2013-03-28T16:45:02Z","receivedAt":"2013-03-28T16:45:02Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"gitster@pobox.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/54884?v=4"},"body":"Christian Couder writes:\n\n> On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 7:52 PM, Jonathan Nieder wrote:\n>> Jeff King wrote:\n>>\n>>> There was a big thread about a month ago on whether Git should do Google\n>>> Summer of Code this year[1].\n>\n> I think we should do it.\n>\n> It looks strange to me to say that students are great and at the same\n> time that we should not do it.\n>\n> Let's give them and us one more chance do to well. This is the only\n> way we can improve.\n\nDo you mean we should be doing the same thing over and over again\nand expecting different results? Einstein may not like it, and I\ncertainly don't.\n\nWhat I gathered from the discussion so far is that everybody agrees\nthat our mentoring has been suboptimal in various ways (not enough\nencouragement to engage with the community early, working in the\ncave for too long, biting too much to chew etc.). What makes you\nthink we would do better this year?\n\n\"We have a track record of being not great at mentoring, and we\nhaven't made an effort to improve it.\" is a perfectly valid and\nhumble reason to excuse ourselves from this year's GSoC.\n\n\"Students are great\" is immaterial. \n\nIn fact, if they are great, I think it is better to give them a\nchance to excel by working with organizations that can mentor them\nbetter, instead of squandering their time and GSoC's money for\nanother failure, until _we_ are ready to take great students.\n\nIt is preferrable if the decision were accompanied with a concrete\nplan for us to prepare our mentoring capability better (if we want\nto participate in future GSoC, that is), but I think it is a\nseparate issue, and I suspect that it is too late for this year's.\n"},{"id":"212557","messageId":"20130328170709.GA8256@sigill.intra.peff.net","threadId":"33307","inReplyTo":"7vtxnvv5gx.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org","subject":"Re: Git and GSoC 2013","fromName":"Jeff King","fromEmail":"peff@peff.net","sentAt":"2013-03-28T17:07:09Z","receivedAt":"2013-03-28T17:07:09Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peff@peff.net","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/45925?v=4"},"body":"On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 09:45:02AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:\n\n> It is preferrable if the decision were accompanied with a concrete\n> plan for us to prepare our mentoring capability better (if we want\n> to participate in future GSoC, that is), but I think it is a\n> separate issue, and I suspect that it is too late for this year's.\n\nI agree with this. I do think we should participate again, and I think\nwe should try to address the issues I brought up (and you mentioned\nin your email) about project size and community involvement.\n\nMy email was meant to be a \"maybe it's not too late if people really\nwant to work on the project ideas page\". But I haven't seen anything\nhappening there, and we really are running right up to the deadline[1].\nI think at this point it makes sense to wait a year and try to approach\nit sooner next year.\n\n-Peff\n\n[1] I know my email didn't give much time for action; the deadline snuck\n up on me, too.\n"},{"id":"212579","messageId":"CAP8UFD2jPSpAQQJC1sUtd5ztnMB=kou36HZUaoPOG4ht-Sj8wg@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"33307","inReplyTo":"7vtxnvv5gx.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org","subject":"Re: Git and GSoC 2013","fromName":"Christian Couder","fromEmail":"christian.couder@gmail.com","sentAt":"2013-03-28T20:39:23Z","receivedAt":"2013-03-28T20:39:23Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"christian.couder@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/208954?v=4"},"body":"On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:\n> Christian Couder writes:\n>\n>> On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 7:52 PM, Jonathan Nieder wrote:\n>>> Jeff King wrote:\n>>>\n>>>> There was a big thread about a month ago on whether Git should do Google\n>>>> Summer of Code this year[1].\n>>\n>> I think we should do it.\n>>\n>> It looks strange to me to say that students are great and at the same\n>> time that we should not do it.\n>>\n>> Let's give them and us one more chance do to well. This is the only\n>> way we can improve.\n>\n> Do you mean we should be doing the same thing over and over again\n> and expecting different results? Einstein may not like it, and I\n> certainly don't.\n\nNo, I don't mean we should be doing the same. I agree that smaller\nprojects are helpful and insisting on submitting right away on the\nmailing list is helpful.\nBut if we don't even try we have no chance to see if it works. We just\nlose time.\n\n> What I gathered from the discussion so far is that everybody agrees\n> that our mentoring has been suboptimal in various ways (not enough\n> encouragement to engage with the community early, working in the\n> cave for too long, biting too much to chew etc.). What makes you\n> think we would do better this year?\n\nThe fact that we will be more conscious that we need smaller projects\nand that we need to push even more for students to send their patch\nsoon on the mailing list.\n\nIf it doesn't work at all we will be set and we will know that there\nis not much we can do to make it work.\n\nIf we don't even try we will not know soon, so not be able to improve\nor decide to stop.\n\nIt's like software or science. If you don't test soon your hypothesis\nyou don't progress fast.\n\nOr do you think we just stand no chance to progress?\n\nBy the way we say that students should post soon to the mailing list\nto get a feedback soon, but it looks like we don't want to try our\nhypothesis around mentoring as soon as we can.\nDoesn't it sound strange to you? Aren't we saying \"do as I say not as I do\"?\n\n> \"We have a track record of being not great at mentoring, and we\n> haven't made an effort to improve it.\" is a perfectly valid and\n> humble reason to excuse ourselves from this year's GSoC.\n\nIt is also a perfectly valid justification to decide to make an effort\nto improve our mentoring and to try again.\n\n> \"Students are great\" is immaterial.\n\n\"We are not great at mentoring\" is as much immaterial.\n\n> In fact, if they are great, I think it is better to give them a\n> chance to excel by working with organizations that can mentor them\n> better, instead of squandering their time and GSoC's money for\n> another failure, until _we_ are ready to take great students.\n\nHow do we know we are ready if we don't try?\n\nBy waiting we just lose the experience we already have, because some\nmentors might not be around next year, or they will not remember well\nabout the process.\n\nAnd some organizations that will perhaps be accepted, if we decide not\nto do it, might have no mentoring experience at all. How do you know\nthey will mentor students better than what we have been doing?\n\nBest regards,\nChristian.\n"},{"id":"212602","messageId":"7vd2uirefb.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org","threadId":"33307","inReplyTo":"CAP8UFD2jPSpAQQJC1sUtd5ztnMB=kou36HZUaoPOG4ht-Sj8wg@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: Git and GSoC 2013","fromName":"Junio C Hamano","fromEmail":"gitster@pobox.com","sentAt":"2013-03-29T04:57:28Z","receivedAt":"2013-03-29T04:57:28Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"gitster@pobox.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/54884?v=4"},"body":"Christian Couder writes:\n\n> On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:\n>\n>> What I gathered from the discussion so far is that everybody agrees\n>> that our mentoring has been suboptimal in various ways (not enough\n>> encouragement to engage with the community early, working in the\n>> cave for too long, biting too much to chew etc.). What makes you\n>> think we would do better this year?\n>\n> The fact that we will be more conscious that we need smaller projects\n> and that we need to push even more for students to send their patch\n> soon on the mailing list.\n>\n> If it doesn't work at all we will be set and we will know that there\n> is not much we can do to make it work.\n\nThat sounds like doing the same thing over and over again to me.\n\nI just looked at the \"ideas\" page Thomas sent the link to upthread\nthis morning, but I didn't see any evidence that it has been been\ncurated with \"we need smaller projects\" in mind.\n\nWe will be more conscious? I cannot take that promise at face value\nafter seeing that the page stayed the same since Thomas resurrected\nit from last year's ideas page ever since it was created.\n\n> If we don't even try we will not know soon, so not be able to improve\n> or decide to stop.\n>\n> It's like software or science. If you don't test soon your hypothesis\n> you don't progress fast.\n\nThe impression I am getting is that the concensus is that we do not\neven have hypothesis worth testing with a grant money from GSoC and\nstudents' time at this point, if I may borrow your science analogy.\n"}]}