<div dir="ltr">Hi Bastien,<div><br></div><div>I'm really surprised by your mail, as we put a lot of things in place to avoid this tunnel effect / feeling of lock of transparency.</div><div>We list each year the points on our application form, which is public on the wiki (<a href="http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Summer_of_Code/Application/2017">http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Summer_of_Code/Application/2017</a>). We also defined a set of rules for the students (<a href="http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Summer_of_Code/Project_Rules">http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Summer_of_Code/Project_Rules</a>). One of those rules is about communication: "<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:verdana,tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px">we require you to </span><b style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:verdana,tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px">communicate with your mentor</b><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:verdana,tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px"> every second day.", another one is about a weekly blog post to keep everybody aware of the progress. Add to that the fact that students use gitHub to commit, and that this fork is mentioned on the very first blog post, and I sincerely think the situation is really transparent.</span></div><div>If one have enough motivation, (s)he could make code reviews and add comments on the commits on a daily basis :)</div><div><br></div><div>Concerning the delay before the code is in a merge request (which is less critical as it's in github anyway), In order to try to keep the students, we decided several years ago to merge as soon as possible, which ideally means as soon as after the second evaluation (it was after mid-term evaluation before last year's GSoC). In the case of Supernova, we didn't manage to do it for various good and bad reasons, so it's only coming now that the game has been translated in English and the engine has been polished. Sludge at the opposite was merged early in the process. We'll try to improve, as usual. But merging before the second evaluation may be annoying when we have the case of a disappearing or failed student. We have to think about it</div><div><br></div><div>I understand your feeling concerning the focus during GSoC because, well, that's precisely what happens! GSoC is about 3 months, students are sometimes trained and experienced, but sometimes they are not, and several times I spent after GSoC a lot of time on refactoring and polishing. It's not that bad for engines, as long as mentors are around for the polishing and for the maintenance afterwards (or even better, when the students stay in the team and do that too). We are not blocked on feature completeness: it happens that students are passed despite the task isn't completely done: we may have underestimated the task, for example. Sadly, based on our experience, when that happens, we rarely manage to complete the task afterwards and we end with useless code.</div><div><br></div><div>What you propose is, I think, perfect for a professional environment but far too much for the GSoC: we won't have time, really. For non-engine tasks, I would says that at the opposite it's absolutely mandatory, and we already do that in a slightly different way. The student works on the detailed design document during the bonding period, with his mentors. If Sev and Wjp aren't mentors, it's obvious they'll be included in the discussions too. For engine tasks, design discussion occur too during the bonding period, but the formalism is different as the impact is very local (the engine itself) and easy to refactor afterwards.</div><div>After the bonding period, it'll be very difficult to have more documents: as the GSoC lasts 3 months and includes 3 evaluation periods (which involve some lost time), time flies crazily during the period.</div><div><br></div><div>That said, it's very nice that you're available for mentoring. maybe you could try the more formal approach you propose if you have a student (but please, during the bonding period!) :)</div><div><br></div><div>I hope I covered your points and answered to some of your problems</div><div><br></div><div>Best regards,</div><div>Arnaud</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 8:36 PM, Bastien Bouclet <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bastien.bouclet@gmail.com" target="_blank">bastien.bouclet@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>Hi all,</div><div><br></div><div>I've never been involved with GSoC (and it's fine). As an outsider, I would</div><div>like to provide my feedback on what went well during the previous seasons</div><div>and what could be improved for this year. I don't mean to put the blame on</div><div>anybody. Quite the opposite, really. A lot of good work has been accomplished.</div><div><br></div><div>The organisational aspect seemed fine to me. Finding project ideas, interacting</div><div>with the GSoC team to register the ScummVM organisation. Welcoming, encouraging</div><div>and selecting students.</div><div><br></div><div>The mentoring part seemed good as well with each student being able to find help</div><div>easily.</div><div><br></div><div>What I'm having trouble with is the lack of transparency of the whole production</div><div>period. To the outsider a GSoC project really begins at the end of the summer</div><div>with a very large pull request being submitted. This is a problem because:</div><div>* Very large pull requests are hard to review.</div><div>* Once all the code has been written and tested, it's too late to provide</div><div> feedback on the design.</div><div>* It's too late to provide advice so the next bits are produced with a better</div><div> quality.</div><div><br></div><div>Another pain point for me is that focus seems to be too much on respecting the</div><div>schedule / producing large amounts of features. This sometimes comes at the cost</div><div>of code quality. Unfortunately history has shown that a lot of students</div><div>disappear at the end of the summer and don't stay to maintain the code.</div><div>The regular team members are left to deal with large amounts of hastily</div><div>written code.</div><div><br></div><div>To improve, my proposal is as follows:</div><div>* The student and the mentor periodically decide on the next tasks. Each task</div><div> is designed to take at most 2 or 3 days of work.</div><div>* Tasks can be either design tasks or implementation tasks. Design tasks result</div><div> in a short RFC document describing the feature, the chosen implementation, and</div><div> the motivation for the implementation. Implementation tasks result in code.</div><div> Both kinds of tasks are reviewed by the team through pull requests.</div><div>* Design tasks are mandatory for non trivial non engine work.</div><div>* A task is 'done' when the associated pull request has been approved by the</div><div> mentor (or a co-mentor) and at least one other team member.</div><div>* There can be at most two open tasks at any given time (one that's being worked</div><div> on, and one that's being reviewed).</div><div>* Failure to meet the schedule and the amount of produced features are not critera</div><div> used to evaluate students. This is made very clear to the students.</div><div>* The focus is on building solid and well designed foundation that can easily</div><div> be maintained / completed by others (possibly GSoC students the next year).</div><div>* All discussion relevant to GSoC is public for the whole team to see</div><div> (IRC, mailing list, ...)</div><div><br></div><div>I'm all in favor of ScummVM participating in GSoC this year.</div><div><br></div><div>I'm available to mentor or co-mentor OpenGL or ResidualVM-related tasks if</div><div>desired.</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>Bastien</div></font></span></div><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2018-01-16 10:47 GMT+01:00 Einar Johan Trøan Sømåen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:einarjohants@gmail.com" target="_blank">einarjohants@gmail.com</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div dir="auto">I'll check my calendar, but tentatively I'm fine with mentoring either of those tasks (or co-mentoring both for that matter)</div><span class="m_-5402427246188713847HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Einar Johan</div></font></span><div><div class="m_-5402427246188713847h5"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div>tir. 16. jan. 2018 kl. 10.43 skrev Arnaud Boutonné <<a href="mailto:strangerke@scummvm.org" target="_blank">strangerke@scummvm.org</a>>:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div>Hi somaen</div><div><br></div><div>Would you have some time to mentor it? T0by, the same question to you?</div><div><br></div><div>btw, who could mentor the ICB task?</div><div><br></div><div>Best regards,</div><div>Arnaud</div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 10:40 AM, Einar Johan Trøan Sømåen <span><<a href="mailto:einarjohants@gmail.com" target="_blank">einarjohants@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div dir="auto">There is also the wintermute 3D task, which I still think is a decent one. So I'm in favour.</div><span class="m_-5402427246188713847m_6190320643858052840m_-3166164655671956384HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Einar Johan</div></font></span><div><div class="m_-5402427246188713847m_6190320643858052840m_-3166164655671956384h5"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div>tir. 16. jan. 2018 kl. 10.13 skrev Arnaud Boutonné <<a href="mailto:strangerke@scummvm.org" target="_blank">strangerke@scummvm.org</a>>:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div>Hey Pawel :)</div><div><br></div><div>Congratulations for the release of v0.3 ... And also, it shows activity on the project which is really cool.</div><div>Did someone consider the Penumbra engine, yet? :)</div><div><br></div><div>See you</div></div><div><div>Arnaud</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 9:21 AM, Paweł Kołodziejski <span><<a href="mailto:aquadran@xtr.net.pl" target="_blank">aquadran@xtr.net.pl</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space">ICB for ResidualVM is still valid task.<div><div class="m_-5402427246188713847m_6190320643858052840m_-3166164655671956384m_1628728403621294795m_2666266802459688692h5"><br><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On 16 Jan 2018, at 09:18, Arnaud Boutonné <<a href="mailto:strangerke@scummvm.org" target="_blank">strangerke@scummvm.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="m_-5402427246188713847m_6190320643858052840m_-3166164655671956384m_1628728403621294795m_2666266802459688692m_9185138949392669889Apple-interchange-newline"><div><div><div>Hi Eugene, hi everybody</div><div><br></div><div>I'm in favor of applying this year again. We can work on last year's list (<a href="http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Summer_of_Code/GSoC_Ideas_2017" target="_blank">http://wiki.scummvm.org/index<wbr>.php/Summer_of_Code/GSoC_Ideas<wbr>_2017</a>). Sludge engine and Supernova's first game are done, and the 2nd supernova game can be used as a task.</div><div>Of course, we have to check the list in order to remove the obsolete one (typically, I have no idea of the status of ICB for ResidualVM, and I don't know if it's still an option to get a student for Director).</div><div><br></div><div>My favorite task is the one about shaders/scalers. It's been lying there foreever, and could give us a really nice outcome.</div><div><br></div><div>The deadline for org application forms is in 2 weeks, so we really have to work on that if I'm not the only one thinking it's a good idea.</div><div><br></div><div>Oh, and I volunteer to be a mentor this year.</div><div><br></div><div>Do you want me to spend some time at looking if there are other low-hanging fruits we could find for potential mentors (like existing engines lying around, or source code availability for other games?)</div><div><br></div><div>Best regards,</div><div>Arnaud</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 12:40 AM, Eugene Sandulenko <span><<a href="mailto:sev@scummvm.org" target="_blank">sev@scummvm.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>Hi Team,<div><br></div><div>Should we apply for the GSoC this year? Do we have enough ideas and mentors?</div><span class="m_-5402427246188713847m_6190320643858052840m_-3166164655671956384m_1628728403621294795m_2666266802459688692m_9185138949392669889HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Eugene</div><div><br></div></font></span></div>
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