On 12/03/13 at 14:14 +0100, Ana Guerrero wrote: > Hi Russ, > > On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 03:03:42PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > > Ana Guerrero <a...@debian.org> writes: > > > > > - For some DDs in previous years, this seemed to be a way to have students > > > doing stuff from their TODO lists... > > > > Just a quick note on this part: I don't think this is inherently a bad > > idea, although of course it should be something the student is also > > excited about. But I remember what I was like when I was in high school: > > I really wanted to program, but I was horrible at coming up with useful > > things to do. I needed a good problem stream that I could work on and > > then I enjoyed finding ways to solve the problems. Not everyone is like > > that, of course, but I do think there are people out there who just want > > to put skills to use and learn how to do new things but don't know how to > > select good and useful problems to work on. > > > > On the general topic of mentoring, though, I think one of the hardest > > parts of helping new people join the project is that people need to start > > with relatively easy tasks so that they can get their feet wet. That > > often means that one needs to step back and let new people do things that > > are easy for the mentor, which in turn means leaving easy work undone for > > long enough to give people a chance to do it. > > > I see your point. In these cases, the "mentor" was more treating the GSoC > program as a bounty program or a way to have "contractors" paid at the expense > of somebody else. It wasn't a real mentoring scheme. > > This kind of mentoring "let's package this new software stack" (and create > a team to maintain it, when it doesn't exist) doesn't need to happen inside > the GSoC, it can happen already in Debian.
Nothing really needs to happen inside GSoC. But GSoC provide several advantages: - there's a rigid framework (deadlines, etc) that help the student organize and focus - the student gets paid by Google - the student gets to mention both Debian and Google on his CV, which is probably seen positively by future recruiters. Lucas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130312185027.gc8...@xanadu.blop.info
