Re: GSoC questions

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mar 28, 2011, 14:35 UTC
Message-ID: <20110328143506.GC14763@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <20110328001152.GA11294@elie>

On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 07:11:53PM -0500, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> The ideas page mentions areas in which libgit2 functionality is
> incomplete --- depending on your interest, you might want to focus on
> one of these (so the project would be to add functionality to libgit2
> as well as using it) or to steer clear of them (to focus on
> functionality libgit2 already has).
> 
> So, to make a long story short: there is something sneaky about us
> presenting this idea, since there is so much room for choice.  As your
> project becomes more precise it should be possible for people on the
> list to give more detailed advice.

Yes. I didn't write those ideas on the idea page, but I do like their sneakiness. On the ideas I put up, I also tried to be a little bit vague.

Because I'd really rather see a student not do a proposal based on one of our ideas as a checklist of things to code. I'd much rather give them a _problem_, then come up with and implement their own solution, figuring out the requirements and the best way to go about it themselves (with hints from the community, of course; none of us works in a vacuum, and certainly somebody new to the project isn't going to always know the best way to go about things).

But GSoC (IMHO) is not just about getting code written. It's also about showing students what it's like to take part in open source projects, and to see a problem in need of solving and scratch that itch. And from the project's perspective, hopefully that gets the student addicted to scratching itches and they keep doing it.

> Another note.  Please feel free to venture beyond projects listed on
> the ideas page.  For example the 2010 ideas page contains some gems:

I very much agree with this. Though I would caution students to talk to the community a bit before doing a proposal for something out of the blue. Because often people have tried and failed at something similar before, and knowing the context helps. So post to the list and say "I am thinking of doing X. Has anybody done something like it before? What would be the best way to go about?"

-Peff