Re: GSoC 2014: Summary so far, discussion starter: how to improve?

From: Thomas Rast <tr@thomasrast.ch>
Date: Oct 26, 2013, 08:21 UTC
Message-ID: <87fvrophm7.fsf@linux-k42r.v.cablecom.net>
In-Reply-To: <20131019215139.GX13967@paksenarrion.iveqy.com>

Fredrik Gustafsson <iveqy@iveqy.com> writes:

Show 10 quoted lines

>> 
>> * Break projects into smaller, easier tasks
>>   - They should individually be simple, quick things if the mentor did
>>     them.
>>   - Should be parallelizable so students don't have to block on reviews.
>
> I'd 5-6 smaller projects setup for the summer, I think I managed to do
> 2-3 of them. (I did however do everything I applied for). I really think
> it's an excellent idea. This also meant that while one patch waited for
> review, I'd other things to work on.

Lots of kudo points for Jens and Heiko :-)

Show 9 quoted lines

>> * Mentoring improvements:
>>   - Always have a co-mentor
>>   - Focus on social aspects (who to Cc, etc.)
>>   - Nominate separate "review mentors" to ensure fast review cycles
>
> I like the idea of review mentors. However bear in mind that you'll
> already have three people reviewing the patches (two mentors and Junio).
> We will not make it look like it's impossible to get things into
> git.git.

I think the idea was not that you'd get *more* reviews, but that there would be a group of volunteers doing reviews to ensure that they arrive fast. Students should have feedback within 1-2 days of the series being posted.

The other advantages are that it provides a set of fresh eyes, and takes load off Junio.

I'm not even sure how official we have to make this. In Thomas Gummerer's case, Michael stepped up with reviews when I couldn't. So maybe it'll again "just work out". But I would like to take this role, and leave the "social" mentoring to others.

-- 
Thomas Rast
tr@thomasrast.ch