From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753648AbbISEWz (ORCPT ); Sat, 19 Sep 2015 00:22:55 -0400 Received: from mail-pa0-f42.google.com ([209.85.220.42]:35995 "EHLO mail-pa0-f42.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750778AbbISEWx (ORCPT ); Sat, 19 Sep 2015 00:22:53 -0400 Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2015 09:52:44 +0530 From: Sudip Mukherjee To: "Theodore Ts'o" , Greg KH , Josh Boyer , Eric Curtin , Austin S Hemmelgarn , Steve Calfee , Valentina Manea , Shuah Khan , USB list , Kernel development list Subject: Re: First kernel patch (optimization) Message-ID: <20150919042148.GA1061@sudip-pc> References: <1442346808-3784-1-git-send-email-ericcurtin17@gmail.com> <55F95671.6060405@gmail.com> <20150916132426.GA7420@kroah.com> <20150916164031.GH7394@thunk.org> <20150918031251.GA30905@thunk.org> <20150918074248.GA10792@kroah.com> <20150919022624.GB2921@thunk.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20150919022624.GB2921@thunk.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 10:26:24PM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 12:42:48AM -0700, Greg KH wrote: > > Rather, what concerns me is that we aren't pushing people to go > *beyond* cleanup patches. We have lots of tutorials about how to > create perfectly formed patches; but we don't seem to have patches > about how to do proper benchmarking. Or how to check system call and > ioctl interfaces to make sure the code is doing appropriate input > checking. So I don't want to pre-reject these people; but to rather > push them and to help them to try their hand at more substantive work. > > What surprises me is the apparent assumption that people need a huge > amount of hand-holding on how to properly form a patch, but that > people will be able to figure out how to do proper benchmarking, or > design proper abstractions, etc., as skills that will magically appear > full-formed into the new kernel programmer's mind without any help or > work on our part. Reading Ted's earlier mail I was thinking since I don't have some of the skills mentioned, maybe I am in wrong place. But what Ted said now is almost the same what I said in the Ksummit discussion about recruitment. I will copy-paste here for reference: "In my opinion the main problem is lack of direction or guidance. As a newbie I send my first patch, it gets accepted, I have a party to celebrate and do more style correction and few more patches are accepted. But by that time I am getting bored with just style correction and want to do something more. Now the problem starts. No one is there to guide me and I as a newbie will not be that much capable enough to find things to do on my own. And I start loosing the interest. Newbies who are coming from Eudyptula or starting on their own will face this. But on the otherhand participants of Outreachy will get a Mentor to guide them and gets a stipend to keep them motivated. Stipend may not matter to the right candidate who has interest but having a mentor is the big difference." This is from my own experience as I have gone through that time phrase. But now after one year I know there are numerous things to do. But still I don't have some of the skills Ted mentioned. I know I will get the skills which I don't have now but since I am on my own that will be a time consuming process. Even more time consuming as this is not part of my dayjob. But if I had a mentor/guide who could have given some hint the process might have been much much faster. regards sudip