Re: [RFC/GSoC] Introduction

From: Matthieu Moy <matthieu.moy@grenoble-inp.fr>
Date: Mar 20, 2016, 20:17 UTC
Message-ID: <vpqwpow9a4o.fsf@anie.imag.fr>
In-Reply-To: <56E6DF17.2040106@gmail.com>

Sidhant Sharma <tigerkid001@gmail.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> On Monday 14 March 2016 01:46 PM, Lars Schneider wrote:
>
>> I also thought about (2). The obvious advantage of having something like 
>> "ggit" as part of Git core is that it would be shipped with the standard
>> Git distribution. That would especially help beginners.

Yes. And that would allow any tutorial to start with something like "Since you're a beginner, use the command ggit instead of git. When you're confident enough, just drop the first 'g' and continue hacking."

Asking a beginner to install a separate tool before starting is a show stopper to me. Or at least, it should be _very_ easy to install.

> I understand that this endeavour may or may not be merged into
> the official Git distribution (though I'd really like it to :)), but
> I still wish to attempt this. I'm also eager to continue work on this
> even after GSoC is over, so maintenance shouldn't be an issue ;)

My usual advice on this point (both for mentors and students): hope that you will continue contributing after the end of the project, but plan as if you won't. You don't want the survival of your code to depend only on you.

I have experience similar to GSoC where I offer CS students to contribute to open-source software as part of a school project. Almost all of them told me that they would continue after and essentially none of them did. I think at least most of them were sincere when they said they would continue, but then they realize that days have only 24 hours and life is short ;-).

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/