Re: [RFH] GSoC 2015 application

[Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 5:06 AM, Matthieu Moy
<Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> wrote:
> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
>> 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