Re: [RFH] GSoC 2015 application

From: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Date: Feb 20, 2015, 23:06 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPig+cR_OaJGAR--04YWW1KHm+1UA7q7O9e4TTcZksGo9s4+8w@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <vpqwq3cdhhe.fsf@anie.imag.fr>

On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 5:06 AM, Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
>> I think these might be getting a little larger than "micro".
>
> The ~/.git-credential-cache may be a bit harder, but the case of
> ~/.git-credentials should follow the same pattern as files for which
> this is already done. So, doing it by mimicking existing code shouldn't
> be too hard.
>
> But maybe that's me being optimistic ;-).

As a person who did a significant number of GSoC 2014 micro-project reviews (as well as many actual GSoC reviews), I probably ought to weigh in and say that this may be too optimistic. In fact, most of the GSoC 2015 micro-project suggestions[1] seem far too large and involved.

For 2014, most of the GSoC micro-projects were extremely simple, of the form "replace starts_with() with skip_prefix()", yet most applicants still required three or four (or more) attempts to get it right (and some never did), even with extremely detailed hand-holding reviews at each step. (And, such reviews are quite time-consuming. I was allocating six to eight hours each day to those reviews, yet I couldn't keep up with all the submissions.)

Although quite simple, many of the 2014 micro-projects[2] (particularly from Michael Haggerty) had a bit of a twist (or trick question) thrown in, requiring a tad more thought and effort than mere mechanical search-and-replace. That was useful because it helped identify potentially acceptable candidates more easily, however, that added twist was probably a good upper limit on difficulty for micro-projects.

Another important aspect of 2014's micro-projects was that they could be accomplished with only very localized knowledge: that is, a student could read the logic of the one function being touched and learn enough to be successful. The micro-projects did not require global knowledge of Git internals or hours of research.

The attitude in 2014 was that it was important for students to get a taste of what it is like working on the Git project and what would be expected of them as submitters, and for GSoC administrators and mentors to get a feel for the applicants by how they interacted with reviewers. By going through the review process on a project with high engineering standards, it also was hope that students would learn and benefit from the experience even if not selected. Extremely simple micro-projects (possibly with a twist) in the style of 2014's were more than sufficient to satisfy these goals, and were more than enough to consume significant reviewer time. The suggested 2015's micro-projects seem far in excess.

[1]: http://git.github.io/SoC-2015-Microprojects.html [2]: http://git.github.io/SoC-2014-Microprojects.html