Re: [RFC][GSOC] Microproject Suggestion

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 14, 2020, 01:41 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqy2t6osht.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <CALH1-Xr_pK02j6_51EnZN=ZrSz6dijt9tn0ANJ21331GzAmBdQ@mail.gmail.com>

Robear Selwans <rwagih.rw@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi, so it came to my attention that GSOC applicants will need to
> submit a microproject to be considered. I was thinking about ...
> So does that sound like a good idea?

Not really.

The purpose of a GSoC microproject is not about producing useful end user product. It is to learn the end-to-end flow, starting from the initial submission, interacting with the reviewers to polish the patch, to reach the final version. For that purpose, we'd prefer a bite-sized project (and that is why it is called "micro")---my personal gut-feeling yardstick is that anything that takes more than 30 minutes to finish by an experienced Git developer to come up with a perfect model answer is too big.

As a real patch for you to get your toes into Git development, outside the scope of GSoC, I think it would be a good sized first patch. It is a bit too big for a microproject, and it is a bit too small for a main GSoC project.

For the feature itself, I'd just do

    $ git reset --soft HEAD~$n ;# rewind
    $ git commit --amend

to open an editor, and then to the editor to edit the log message, I'd tell it to insert "git log ..@{1}" to the edit buffer to help me formulate the log message for the consolidated change, so I do not personally see me using it, even if it were available.

Thanks.