Is needed be an undergrad student to join in the GSoC? 2011/3/21 Andrew Godwin <and...@aeracode.org>
> Hello everyone, > > Django has once again been accepted as one of the participating projects > for Google Summer of Code, and so we're now looking for student projects! > I've taken over the role of GSoC administrator from Jannis this year; > feel free to email me directly (or catch me on IRC) if you have > any problems or want to discuss something about the program. > > For those who aren't aware: Summer of Code is Google's program to pay > students to work on open source projects over the summer. It's an excellent > chance for you to get involved in open source without worrying about > having to get a summer job for income; Django have been doing GSoC > since 2006 and several core committers are former GSoC students. > > For more details about Summer Of Code, including the timeline, > payment amounts, and how students are expected to participate, > check out Google's FAQ: > > > http://www.google-melange.com/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2011/faqs > > > If you're interested in working on Django as part of GSoC please > read this whole email (much thanks to both Jannis and Jacob for > providing previous iterations of much of this text). > > Important dates > --------------- > > The whole timeline can be found on Google's GSoC site, but there's a > couple of > important dates you should be aware of right now: > > The student application period opens March 28th and ends April 8th > (19:00 UTC). > > Remember, the April 8th deadline is a *hard* deadline: no applications > filed > late will be considered. This means you've got a little more than two > weeks to > prepare your application, so the time to start is *right now*. > > Picking a project > ----------------- > The first thing you need to do is choose something to work on. Hopefully if > you're reading this you've already got an idea; if not, there's some > ideas at > > http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/SummerOfCode2011 > > However, if you just pick something there and throw together a quick > application, you're going to get rejected immediately. There's a lot > more to > choosing a project that just throwing something together. > > We've found over the past years that the pickier we are about application > quality, the better the final projects are. Because we want success this > year, > we're going to be exceedingly picky about only accepting good > applications, so > it's vital that you put your best foot forward. Here's how: > > Think of the process as applying for a job. You're trying to convince us > that you: > > (a) understand the problem you're attempting, and > > (b) have some chance of achieving something realistic in the 12 week > period you've got to work. > > This can be hard, particularly for people haven't been involved in Django > development before; while some projects require a history of involvement > before > applying, we let anybody apply. So it's really *now* that you want to start > getting involved. You have to put in a little bit of work to work out > how your > problem might be approached, or what the current problems are. Don't > just pick > something from the ideas page -- you could also look through Trac and > view the > tickets grouped by component and see if there's a bunch of things in a > similar > area that suggests something needing more holistic attention. > > Most importantly, though, when you have some kind of idea, start a > discussion > on django-developers. This will let us help you understand what you're up > against, and it'll help us see that you've got the knowledge to tackle the > problem. It also helps if you mark the discussion subject with [GSoC], so > we > can easily see that you want feedback relatively quickly. > > The applications that have been most successful in the past -- in terms of > producing working code at the end of the period, rather than just being > accepted -- are those where the applicants have engaged a bit ahead of > time to > see if their ideas stand up to review and/or tweak those ideas a bit. > > Once you've had one of these discussions, *then* you're in a position to > write > an application that can lay out your cunning plan and point to a discussion > showing it kind of holds up under scrutiny. We have much more confidence > voting for a student who's done the preparation than somebody with no > history > whatsoever. Many SoC students are only starting to get into Django, which > means you have to do some work here and get a feeling for what > you're up against. > > In short, the application isn't a "convince us to let you work on this > for the > summer" as much as "convince us you understand the problem you're > proposing to work on and that your solution has a chance of working > and being accepted by the core body of developers". > > Our goal this year is for *every single project* to result in code that > gets > committed back to Django. We'll accomplish this goal by *rejecting* > applications that don't show us good odds of success. > > What a good proposal looks like > ------------------------------- > Once you've got some discussion done, and have a handle on the task, > you'll need to submit your proposal on the GSoC website > (http://www.google-melange.com/). > > We'll be looking for a few things in your proposal: > > - A concise but complete description of the problem. > > - A concrete, as detailed as you can, proposal of how you plan to > modify > Django to fix said problem. This is where you'll include links to > your previous discussions on django-developers. > > - A timeline, ideally broken into week or two-week chunks, showing the > steps you plan to take as you work on the problem. This is obviously > subject to change, but it'll show us that you have a handle on the > scope > of the problem. You should also indicate roughly how much time > (hours/week) you can devote to the problem. Some folks work full-time > (40+ hours/week) on SoC. Less is OK, but if you've only got weekends > free we'd like to know about that. > > - Some information about yourself, including why you think you're > qualified to work on this problem. We don't need or want a resume, > but > include any relevant information about you and your background > that'll > help us get a feel for who you are. > > What a bad proposal looks like > ------------------------------ > > Just to round things out, a couple of things that happen in applications > that have absolutely no chance: > > - Somebody we've never heard of proposing something *really* ambitious. > It's not too hard to guess roughly at the required amount of work, > for > those of use who maintain Django or work regularly on the > internals, so > if somebody proposes something that's too hard, we can tell. And > if we > don't know them at all, it's hard to trust they'll get things done. > > - However, the, the problem shouldn't be too small. It's called > Summer of > Code, not Weekend of Code. > > - A proposed change without any evidence on django-dev or > django-users (or > elsewhere) that the change is needed. We make changes because > there are > use-cases for them, not because we can. So any proposal should be > driven > by trying to fix some existing problem, not creating a "wouldn't > it be > nice if...?" situation. > > - This will sound clichéd, but a badly written application is a real > turn-off. If you can't write an important document like that and use > spelling, grammar and sentences with at least some punctuation, we'll > worry about your ability to communicate effectively with your > mentor and > the community. > > There's a lot of people in our community who don't speak English as a > first language. *That's* not a problem; we're not going to be grading > you! However, we need to see that you can communicate clearly, and so > basic proofreading is a must. > > > Next steps > ---------- > > If you've read all that -- and congratulations, by the way! -- the next > things > to do are: > > - Start looking for a project, and draw up some rough plans. > > - Get an initial proposal together, and post it to django-developers. > > Good luck, and we look forward to your proposals! > > Andrew > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en. > > -- Atenciosamente Raphael Passini Diniz -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. 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