RE: [ros-general] Google Summer Of Code 2006 mentoring organizati onrequest

[Murphy, Ged (Bolton)]

Aleksey Bragin wrote:

>   Meanwhile, we already should start compiling a list of
>
>  project's suggestions 
>  for it. Everyone is welcome to provide suggested projects, 
>  however please 
>  have in mind that only 1 student can do 1 project (or 
>  separate part of the 
>  bigger project). The project should sound interesting to a 
>  student who takes 
>  it, it should be doable and should have exact tasks to do. 
I think it would be beneficial to approach this in the manner projects are
put forward for degree courses.
That being that each potential project should have some background info and
a description of the project itself.
Each project should also be assigned a sponsor / mentor as this is generally
a requirement of all major undertaken in degree courses.

We should therefore not put projects forward which no developer is prepared
to sponsor and we should refrain from providing projects with one line
descriptions.

Ged.













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[Aleksey Bragin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Murphy, Ged (Bolton)" <MurphyG(a)cmpbatteries.co.uk>
To: "'ReactOS General List'" <ros-general(a)reactos.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 11:49 AM
Subject: RE: [ros-general] Google Summer Of Code 2006 mentoring 
organizationrequest


>   We should therefore not put projects forward which no
> developer is 
>  prepared
>  to sponsor and we should refrain from providing projects with one line
>  descriptions. 
ReactOS as a mentoring organization provides ideas and projects suggestions, 
and there is no problem if our ideas are one line descriptions - if a 
potential developer knows this area, he's going to prepare a big proposal, 
writing in details how he sees the project, and how it could be done.

Regarding student's further work as a degree course - that's certainly 
great, but that's for students to decide.


With the best regards,
Aleksey Bragin.

[Ged Murphy]

Aleksey Bragin wrote:

I think you misunderstood me
>   ReactOS as a mentoring organization provides ideas and
> projects 
>  suggestions, and there is no problem if our ideas are one line 
>  descriptions - if a potential developer knows this area, he's going to 
>  prepare a big proposal, writing in details how he sees the project, 
>  and how it could be done.
>  
Having a one liner doesn't give a student enough information to see what 
the project may entail. Having a project title and a small description 
will make the project more appealing IMO. I'd rather know as much as I 
can about a project I'm about to take on.

I think something like what Apache provide is great : 
http://wiki.apache.org/general/SummerOfCode2006

>   Regarding student's further work as a degree
> course - that's certainly 
>  great, but that's for students to decide.
>  
I wasn't referring to anyone using this as a degree project, I just 
meant a degree project is a good, professional format, and it would be 
good to follow that format.

When I've chosen my degree projects in the past, I was given a list of 
potential projects from mentors. I picked the ones which sounded the 
most appealing from their project description. If a project was 
described in one or two lines, I would generally ignore it. My thoughts 
were that it can't be too exciting or the mentor has no interest.
It always worked well and this SoC format is exactly the same.

Ged.

[Aleksey Bragin]

Ok, if you insist...
Let's look at the sample from Apache wiki and list its fields: Subject ID, 
Title, ASF Project, Keywords, Description, Possible Mentors, Status.

Subject ID, Keywords, Status are practically non-informative for the 
student.
Title and Description are the fields student looks at. (in rare cases he 
looks for possible mentors listed).

So let's see:
Title: Refactor the dispatcher as cocoon block
Description: The dispatcher code, till now 2 different forrest plugins 
(internal and output), needs to be refactored to a cocoon block for better 
reusability in cocoon based appz

(ok, well, that's a 2 liner, not 1 :-))

And compare this to ours: Develop ext3 IFS driver for Windows XP/2003.

Which can be represented this way:
Subject ID: ext3-driver
Title: Ext3 IFS driver for Windows XP/2003
Keywords: IFS, ext3, driver, Windows XP, Windows 2003
Description: Develop an IFS driver for Windows XP/2003 for ext3 filesystem.
Possible mentor: -
Status: -

Isn't it like chewing the same thing for 4 fields instead of one clear task 
which gives student the thought: "I know IFS, I know driver-writing, I love 
ext3. I will apply to this project".

We are going to get not 1 student's proposal, but many of them (according to 
last SoC 2005), and we need to choose the people who really deserve the 
advantages of SoC 2006. And again referencing SoC 2005, students tend to 
copy-paste such a detailed (really detailed) project description into their 
application and submit it. How to choose then? It sounds tasty, but from 
another side - you wrote it, not a student ;).

Anyway, Ged, please feel free to make our ideas (yes, they are ideas now, 
not real project proposals) into more advanced "ideas" (having more 
description). I appreciate that if you think this helps.

WBR,
Aleksey Bragin.

P.S.
Wine guys are the most funny about ideas - 
http://wiki.winehq.org/SummerOfCode


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ged Murphy" <gedmurphy(a)gmail.com>
To: "ReactOS General List" <ros-general(a)reactos.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 8:25 PM
Subject: Re: [ros-general] Google Summer Of Code 2006mentoring 
organizationrequest


>   Aleksey Bragin wrote:
>
>  I think you misunderstood me
> >   ReactOS as a mentoring organization provides
> > ideas and projects 
> >  suggestions, and there is no problem if our ideas are one line 
> >  descriptions - if a potential developer knows this area, he's going to 
> >  prepare a big proposal, writing in details how he sees the project, and 
> >  how it could be done.
> >  
>  Having a one liner doesn't give a student enough information to see what 
>  the project may entail. Having a project title and a small description 
>  will make the project more appealing IMO. I'd rather know as much as I can 
>  about a project I'm about to take on.
>
>  I think something like what Apache provide is great : 
>  http://wiki.apache.org/general/SummerOfCode2006
>
> >   Regarding student's further work as a degree
> > course - that's certainly 
> >  great, but that's for students to decide.
> >  
>  I wasn't referring to anyone using this as a degree project, I just meant 
>  a degree project is a good, professional format, and it would be good to 
>  follow that format.
>
>  When I've chosen my degree projects in the past, I was given a list of 
>  potential projects from mentors. I picked the ones which sounded the most 
>  appealing from their project description. If a project was described in 
>  one or two lines, I would generally ignore it. My thoughts were that it 
>  can't be too exciting or the mentor has no interest.
>  It always worked well and this SoC format is exactly the same.
>
>  Ged.