Re: Google Summer of Code 2013 (GSoC13)

From: Thomas Rast <trast@inf.ethz.ch>
Date: Feb 19, 2013, 08:41 UTC
Message-ID: <874nh8vgoo.fsf@pctrast.inf.ethz.ch>
In-Reply-To: <CALkWK0nnkfrHi-0=c-bXdBHaOeBsCdccZDJZX5LDs0dT=SsReg@mail.gmail.com>

Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:

Show 20 quoted lines

> Jonathan Nieder wrote:
>> Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:
>>
>>> The short undiplomatic version of that is that our mentors suck (I'm
>>> not pointing fingers, but that's what I infer from failing projects).
>>
>> Hold on a second.  I'm not remembering such a grim outcome with 100%
>> failure from prior summers of code as you're describing.  Before I
>> start beating myself up, I guess I'd like a little more information
>> --- is there some specific project or statistic that you're thinking
>> of that brings you to that conclusion?
>
> In retrospect, I might have been unnecessarily harsh there.
>
> One of the main measures of a mentor's success, in my opinion, is
> having his student stick around after the Summer of Code: the mentor
> is the student's primary link to the community.  There have been 4~5
> students every year, times 6 years (is that how long we've been
> participating?).  How many of those students have felt part of the
> community?

In defense of Thomas, whose project was mentioned earlier as a prime example of something that is "too big":

He's in fact still working on the index-API angle, as part of a thesis at university.

-- 
Thomas Rast
trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch