Re: [RFH] GSoC 2015 application

On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 5:06 AM, Matthieu Moy
[off-list ref] wrote:

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

I think these might be getting a little larger than "micro".

The ~/.git-credential-cache may be a bit harder, but the case of
~/.git-credentials should follow the same pattern as files for which
this is already done. So, doing it by mimicking existing code shouldn't
be too hard.

But maybe that's me being optimistic ;-).

As a person who did a significant number of GSoC 2014 micro-project
reviews (as well as many actual GSoC reviews), I probably ought to
weigh in and say that this may be too optimistic. In fact, most of the
GSoC 2015 micro-project suggestions[1] seem far too large and
involved.

For 2014, most of the GSoC micro-projects were extremely simple, of
the form "replace starts_with() with skip_prefix()", yet most
applicants still required three or four (or more) attempts to get it
right (and some never did), even with extremely detailed hand-holding
reviews at each step. (And, such reviews are quite time-consuming. I
was allocating six to eight hours each day to those reviews, yet I
couldn't keep up with all the submissions.)

Although quite simple, many of the 2014 micro-projects[2]
(particularly from Michael Haggerty) had a bit of a twist (or trick
question) thrown in, requiring a tad more thought and effort than mere
mechanical search-and-replace. That was useful because it helped
identify potentially acceptable candidates more easily, however, that
added twist was probably a good upper limit on difficulty for
micro-projects.

Another important aspect of 2014's micro-projects was that they could
be accomplished with only very localized knowledge: that is, a student
could read the logic of the one function being touched and learn
enough to be successful. The micro-projects did not require global
knowledge of Git internals or hours of research.

The attitude in 2014 was that it was important for students to get a
taste of what it is like working on the Git project and what would be
expected of them as submitters, and for GSoC administrators and
mentors to get a feel for the applicants by how they interacted with
reviewers. By going through the review process on a project with high
engineering standards, it also was hope that students would learn and
benefit from the experience even if not selected. Extremely simple
micro-projects (possibly with a twist) in the style of 2014's were
more than sufficient to satisfy these goals, and were more than enough
to consume significant reviewer time. The suggested 2015's
micro-projects seem far in excess.

[1]: http://git.github.io/SoC-2015-Microprojects.html
[2]: http://git.github.io/SoC-2014-Microprojects.html