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Comments on: I know what happens each summer http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2009/04/23/i-know-what-happens-each-summer/ A collection of jottings on various issues that excite no one else Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:58:48 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.6.13 By: sankarshan http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2009/04/23/i-know-what-happens-each-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-67226 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:58:48 +0000 http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/?p=562#comment-67226 In reply to Benjamin Otte.

I agree with your point of view. It is a very hard and uphill problem. However, the alternative is asking students to pick up “toy” projects and implement whatever they want to do. That is equally hard and somewhat counter productive as well. The underlying theme of the blog was to put out in the open the need for projects to start considering easy_to_do tasks in form of tags. Not all such tasks would end up getting the hard-boiled disapproval from upstream. And, one of the objectives for such a dashboard is to build up the confidence to attempt tasks of increasing complexity.

Having a dashboard and, then obtaining teacher buy-in at the institutions ensure that there are in-situ mentors/coaches who can provide that positive vibes to carry a student through the initial phases.

]]> By: sankarshan http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2009/04/23/i-know-what-happens-each-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-67225 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:38:43 +0000 http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/?p=562#comment-67225 In reply to JF.

And, that has been a nagging question for a while. History/Arts/Literature majors and people from other non-technical education backgrounds. The sad part is that stating “why don’t you look around the project wiki to figure where you can start” doesn’t really cut it. There really has to be a bit more effort in terms of attracting these talents. What specific form/shape the effort needs to be, I really don’t have any idea now. The intent of mentioning this was to put out the notion in some public forum so that it gets discussed.

]]> By: sankarshan http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2009/04/23/i-know-what-happens-each-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-67224 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:36:35 +0000 http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/?p=562#comment-67224 In reply to James.

It is a bit like GHOP and yet, it isn’t. What would be interesting is figuring out how projects can maintain a dashboard of entry-level tasks throughout the year instead of specific ‘project/program’ initiatives.

]]> By: James http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2009/04/23/i-know-what-happens-each-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-67209 Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:46:00 +0000 http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/?p=562#comment-67209 Sounds a bit like GHOP, although that was for pre-university students.

]]> By: JF http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2009/04/23/i-know-what-happens-each-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-67206 Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:33:49 +0000 http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/?p=562#comment-67206 Speaking as a history student, I can confirm what JonRob was saying. I’d love to help developing FOSS, but I fail to see how having studied the foundation of the People’s Republic of China and the lead up of Japan into the Pacific War will be of any help to open-source projects.

I mean, personally, I do have some skillsets that would help, there was another lifetime where I graduated community college as a database programmer and I am currently studying Japanese in Japan, but I’m not confident enough in my Japanese abilities to translate very much and I’ve left the programming world in frustration so…

If anybody can show me what a history major can contribute, I’d be glad to look into it.

]]> By: Benjamin Otte http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2009/04/23/i-know-what-happens-each-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-67205 Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:45:53 +0000 http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/?p=562#comment-67205 There’s one problem with that: It’s likely a very discouraging experience for the student. Upstream projects often are of very high code quality and often require a very good understanding of both the programming language and the codebase(s) used. Students new to FLOSS likely have neither of those.

Plus, if your first experience is getting a patch (that you likely not even understand fully) rejected multiple times (for reasons you likely don’t fully understand either) will not make you appreciate working on FLOSS.

I think you should try to find some work that does not require this much knowledge, but encourages acquiring that knowledge and gives them a feel of accomplishment. Bug triage, testing, translation or working on new or experimental code bases that aren’t of such a high quality yet come to mind there.

From my own experience in 2001 or so: It took me roughly half a year of working on GStreamer’s unstable branch before the patches I sent to the glib people were useful to them. Most of my early bugs were closed “WONTFIX, it’s supposed to work this way” 😉

]]> By: JonRob http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2009/04/23/i-know-what-happens-each-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-67204 Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:14:11 +0000 http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/?p=562#comment-67204 With respect to the first problem, maybe advertising the fact that there is work for people with those skill sets to do. I think it’s all too easy for people who aren’t in Computer Science areas to think there’s no way they can help, so even the ones who are interested and follow along won’t be sending their applications.

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