[Adium-devl] Summer of Code '09

Thu Feb 19 13:48:49 UTC 2009

Hi,

 From where I stand the idea is not to scare anyone, but rather to set  
reasonable expectations. If you know how to program Objective-C then  
developing a new feature, that you were contracted to do, becomes a  
realistic task. The mentor is about helping you with Adium and  
furthing your development there. If you don't know how to program then  
the mentor is being asked to do something extra. This is like having  
your physics teacher teach you maths, because you never did the maths  
class.

If you want to learn to program in Objective-C, then you should not be  
waiting for a SoC. What you should do is ask for the best way to go  
about it and looking at exisiting programs in Objective-C to see how  
things are done. Writing a few small programs is also a good way.  
Something else that could be done, again separate to SoC is to ask the  
Adium team to assign you a bug and have you try to fix it. Granted  
most of us want to be writing new code, but fixing a bug is a great  
way to learn about the coding of a piece of software. Is this  
something you would be willing to do? Remember if you manage to fix  
these bugs, then you will have scored points towards being asked to do  
something orginal.

In that vain does the Adium team have any bugs that a beginner could  
give a go at fixing?

Andre-John

On 13-Feb-2009, at 12:43, mm w wrote:

> Hi all, sorry,
> if there was some misunderstanding, that was not my point,
> sure you have to be interested in, and I think if someone is looking
> for an internship
> in software... it's something that's he currently learns... but even
> the most gifted student is a
> cow, it's a bunch of work for a mentor and this is the job of a
> mentor have pleasure to teach,
> you are scary me, this is putrid/rotten to expect results like this,
> hey... it's not because someone has the opportunity to be paid that is
> an exploitable animal in comparison to  someone who has not  lucky or
> don't study in a great school, in this kind of deal there is still
> much more work for the mentor than the slave...
>
> - Cheers!
>
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 9:13 AM, Nicolas Bellville <nico.be at hotmail.com 
> > wrote:
>> I think the same thing: it's not possible to develop a program,
>> even in Open-Source, and accept the help of people who don't
>> know anything about coding and the creating of a project.
>> The idea of a test is, in my opinion, also a good thing to know
>> who may be enough good to develop adium.
>> Nicolas
>>
>>> From: jmpp at macports.org
>>> To: adium-devl at adiumx.com
>>> Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:27:45 -0430
>>> Subject: Re: [Adium-devl] Summer of Code '09
>>>
>>>
>>> On Feb 12, 2009, at 12:58 PM, Peter Hosey wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Feb 12, 2009, at 09:19:19, Christopher Forsythe wrote:
>>>>> I think the difference is that when you do a SoC project, you're
>>>>> doing contract work, and the expectations of the end result are
>>>>> much higher than say, a side project you work on in your spare  
>>>>> time
>>>>> while you learn how to code.
>>>>
>>>> Speaking of which, we should make it an explicit requirement that
>>>> you must know how to program Cocoa for the Mac. No learning Cocoa  
>>>> on
>>>> the fly, and no Cocoa-Touch-only programmers.
>>>
>>>
>>> It may sound a bit daunting and unpleasant to applicants and/or
>>> aspiring contributors, but since it *is* a contract job, as Chris  
>>> very
>>> well put it, it must be made clear that:
>>>
>>> 1) Learning to code up to the point of being fluent/competent in a
>>> language and at least a basic set of related APIs &&
>>> 2) learning enough problem solving techniques to be able to  
>>> develop an
>>> idea and turn it into a shipping product &&
>>> 3) learning an existing project's codebase to put 1) & 2) into
>>> practice for that project:
>>>
>>> is definitely *NOT* (*STRONG* emphasis) something that can be done  
>>> in
>>> a single summer, not by very far!
>>>
>>> Now, I really don't meant to discourage any aspiring contributor, in
>>> a way I'm one myself wrt Adium, for sometime in the future, not too
>>> far now, before the sun turns into a giant ice cube.. ;-) But rules
>>> and/or implications do need to be clear (specially when there's any
>>> sort of a contract involved) and those of us who didn't go to CS
>>> school can very well speak for the applicability of the 3 points  
>>> above
>>> when you're doing all this "on your spare time" (sounds like I've  
>>> been
>>> there?).
>>>
>>> Kudos for venturing into the world of software development / open
>>> source in such a brave way, but 1) and 2) above, at least, should  
>>> bar
>>> participating in something like GSoC, in my opinion.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> And we should come up with some kind of basic competency test—maybe
>>>> a spec for a small app that they have to implement using pure  
>>>> Cocoa/
>>>> Obj-C.
>>>
>>>
>>> This would indeed take care of 1) and 2).
>>>
>>> Regards,...
>>>
>>>
>>> - jmpp
>>>
>>>
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>>> Adium-devl at adiumx.com
>>> http://adiumx.com/mailman/listinfo/adium-devl_adiumx.com
>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> -mmw
>
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