From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Fredrik Gustafsson Subject: Re: GSoC 2014: Summary so far, discussion starter: how to improve? Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 23:51:39 +0200 Message-ID: <20131019215139.GX13967@paksenarrion.iveqy.com> References: <8761stx04i.fsf@linux-k42r.v.cablecom.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, Ben Straub , Carlos =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mart=EDn?= Nieto , Christian Couder , David Michael Barr , Edward Thomson , Florian Achleitner , Jakub Narebski , Jeff King , Jens Lehmann , Martin Woodward , Matthieu Moy , Michael Haggerty , Michael Schubert , Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy , Pat Thoyts , Paul Mackerras , Philip Kelley , Ramkumar Ramachandra , Ramsay Jones , Russell Belfer , Scott Chacon , Shawn Pearce X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sat Oct 19 23:52:47 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1VXeRv-0005ak-Oh for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Oct 2013 23:52:44 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752873Ab3JSVw0 convert rfc822-to-quoted-printable (ORCPT ); Sat, 19 Oct 2013 17:52:26 -0400 Received: from mail-lb0-f178.google.com ([209.85.217.178]:57805 "EHLO mail-lb0-f178.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752728Ab3JSVwZ (ORCPT ); Sat, 19 Oct 2013 17:52:25 -0400 Received: by mail-lb0-f178.google.com with SMTP id o14so264179lbi.23 for ; Sat, 19 Oct 2013 14:52:24 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=sender:date:from:to:cc:subject:message-id:references:mime-version :content-type:content-disposition:content-transfer-encoding :in-reply-to:user-agent; bh=MtZcnToLLsrL3cCYmZhl21WS/doLpWQpHZdkdF89gyE=; b=t9b55w4Ut29BMVLs3B2cBIDmrHuVhFdNUD6blBStehTAo16PILRrSu+iKfwcepfYQk zLtABsfgbCPx8/06IPx7xnpTMinbCcwBZV5062+u7uzhOo5ElipXEIwIS/lIiuq9vp7v WNkWOIePxzCcKbTaj7Rr//dRzD0SPorNZQbop/MDcPxXs8GF6Cot4vVTzm7GLov+XX0i MUSmGTPAl0kk7akDeIwFidPUEHGdshaodLSkIx5RLAXT77aVi7wN/V+jk/UtuRDeqvUh T80xi3u0s1IGeZk5Bcfa7M4PdoH34jp4rrEUIUk342m5GPxRnL/PBocBCYWA4iTXEjXz 7qYg== X-Received: by 10.152.23.5 with SMTP id i5mr7339952laf.8.1382219543769; Sat, 19 Oct 2013 14:52:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from paksenarrion.iveqy.com (c83-250-237-167.bredband.comhem.se. [83.250.237.167]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id ac2sm6563292lbc.10.2013.10.19.14.52.22 for (version=TLSv1 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Sat, 19 Oct 2013 14:52:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from iveqy by paksenarrion.iveqy.com with local (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1VXeQt-0006O1-Mp; Sat, 19 Oct 2013 23:51:39 +0200 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <8761stx04i.fsf@linux-k42r.v.cablecom.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Hi, so I was a GSoC:er, I got some (most) of my code merged but didn't full= y met my (personal) goals for the project. However I do passed in the eye= s of Google. GSoC is _hard_. You end up feeling completely stupid over and over again. Git has hard standards. Beeing just a single programmer and/or just learnt programming in school, there's a lot of difference. I started with learning git (better), read documentation and looking at the codebase and still felt lost. After that I'd to learn communication skills, who to mail, when to mail= , how to write a commit message, been real strict with codestyle, setting up a github account, configuring git in a "git contributor friendly way", etc. On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 08:09:33AM +0200, Thomas Rast wrote: > Theories > =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D >=20 > These are the hypotheses that I have heard (mostly in [1] and [2]) as > to what is bad about Git's prior GSoC participations. >=20 > * Aiming far too high, focusing on cool/shiny projects with a large > impact. This also affects the students, who tend to cluster around > the largest, shiniest project suggestions. >=20 > * Diminishing returns: Git is too mature, with little low-hanging > fruit left, making such projects harder >=20 > * Projects are too political, progress depending on non-technical > arguments >=20 > * Our mentors suck on various axes, notably not supporting students > enough in things that matter: > - smooth interaction with community > - ensure fast iteration/short cycles > - navigating the code base >=20 > * Scope creep: projects tend to get blocked on some bigger > refactoring/restructuring task that was not in the original proposa= l >=20 >=20 >=20 > * View GSoC much more as a lot of work than free labor Totally agree, GSoC is an investment for future labor, not labor. >=20 > * Break projects into smaller, easier tasks > - They should individually be simple, quick things if the mentor di= d > them. > - Should be parallelizable so students don't have to block on revie= ws. 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 thin= k it's an excellent idea. This also meant that while one patch waited for review, I'd other things to work on. >=20 > * 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)= =2E We will not make it look like it's impossible to get things into git.git. > * Have students review some patches This would be excellent. That's a part that I thinks is very usefull an= d would easy students remaining with git. It's easier to review patches than to make them. As a last part I would say that GSoC learned me a lot. I'm good at git, I know test driven development, I learned shell, I got to play with a huge C-codebase for the first time and I learned open source projects, QA, etc. I would like to thank Jens and Heiko for good mentoring and a lot of patience! (as a sidenote, I did get extremly busy when the school started. I didn't even had time to fix a serious bug in my code (Jens had to clean up after me). However two years later I'd some time again and got a few patches in and I hope to get a few patches into git in the future too). A successful GSoC for git isn't a merged project but continued contribution to git (not necessairly in patches, but also in support an= d review). A successful GSoC for Google/student is a merged project. A successful GSoC for student is a great learning experience. --=20 Med v=E4nliga h=E4lsningar =46redrik Gustafsson tel: 0733-608274 e-post: iveqy@iveqy.com