Re: KDE Program for a FLOSS-oriented CS curriculum

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 2:58 AM, Harold Schreckengost <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Harold, thanks for your comments,

> I would first want to know what, exactly, using KDE-specific tools and
> methods would offer to the education sector over other, more common,
> curricula.  It seems that it would be, at best, ineffective, and at worst
> antithetical to their cause.

Well, the curricula wouldn't be modified. The practices and uses of the
fundamental knowledges taught in the classes, however, would be done
in a scenario that:

i) offer real solutions for real problems, instead of toy problems;
ii) cares about technically correct solutions;
iii) leverages the skills related to social aspects of working in communities.

>
> Perhaps there is a middle ground here, however.  Would KDE be able to offer
> internships to students looking for one to get them on board?  Rather than
> trying to change the curricula in an entire department, this would be
> relatively simple in comparison.  This way, we end up with students who are
> more likely to be highly motivated and who will want to be here to help.

Yes, I wouldn't expect such a program be adopted in its entirety. The message
would be rather: "if you are a professor (or even a student) of a particular CS
subject X in an undergraduate CS course and would like to know more about how
such matter has been applied in real KDE applications or about how to apply
such matter as practical exercises formatted as KDE contributions, please take
this guide and find the recommendations for the X subject".

To any extent, professors always push their students towards some particular
technology when they suggest Eclipse, Netbeans, or a particular web development
framework, for the practical activities. If other FLOSS communities provide such
adoption programs, professors and students could choose which one they would
like do focus their work. Kevin Ottens has some successful experiences
in pushing
students towards KDE development in Toulouse. I have also conducted a FLOSS
development course, some time ago, where students chosen a particular FLOSS
community to make their practices. IMHO, such "KDE Program" would make
these efforts
more frequent and easier to be undertaken.

Cheers,
Sandro

>
> Just my two cents as someone outside the CS field.
>
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:10 PM, Sandro Andrade <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I've been thinking about the process by which newcomers start doing
>> their contributions in KDE. In spite of some minor exceptions, I guess
>> undergraduate students are still the majority of such potential
>> contributors. However, different universities around the world vary
>> from zero to very intense incentives not only to the adoption but also
>> to focus their academic activities towards FLOSS applications.
>>
>> Certainly many possible causes for such zero adoption of FLOSS in
>> universities are out of our immediate control, but I think we have
>> chances for addressing another ones. What I've seen, at least in
>> Brazil, is that most CS professors are either not interested in FLOSS
>> or perhaps interested but completely unaware about how things work and
>> how they would correlate FLOSS with the subjects taught in their
>> courses.
>>
>> Cutting right to the chase, I was wondering if the availability of a
>> high quality and comprehensive "KDE Program for a FLOSS-oriented CS
>> curriculum" would help in any way the number of CS students doing
>> their work using KDE software. In practical terms, we initially would
>> have to agree on a common CS curricula (hopefully that is expected to
>> be easily identified) and then document, for each curriculum
>> component, the KDE technologies that would be either inspiring sources
>> for analysis or potential cases to apply, as contributions, concepts
>> related to that curriculum component.
>>
>> Some examples:
>>
>> - For a "Data Structure" and "Graph Theory" courses: we  would
>> document possible contributions in Rocs or the main implementation
>> aspects of Qt container classes.
>> - For a "Design Patterns" and "Software Architecture" courses: we
>> would describe how patterns have been used across KDE software and the
>> tactics adopted in outstanding architectures of applications like
>> KDevelop, Qt Creator, Plasma, KF5, and many others.
>> - For a "Software Quality" and "Project Management" courses: we would
>> explain the quality assurance process adopted in Qt and KDE
>> communities, along with the tools, standards, and procedures that
>> support the process.
>> - For a "Computer Graphics and Image Processing" course: we would
>> point out contributions possibilities in kdenlive, krita, and so on.
>> - For a "Compilers and Programming Paradigms" course: we could explore
>> the grantlee parser automata and/or the QML interpreter.
>>
>> The ultimate goal would be having a detailed set of guidelines about
>> how to adopt KDE as a central case study in CS courses. Obviously,
>> that would require some time investment and the help of those of you
>> who knows a lot about KDE solutions.
>>
>> By now, I would like to hear from you about two initial questions:
>>
>> 1) Do you experience this same scenario in your countries/universities
>> and consider this problem 'pervasive' enough to demand a global
>> endeavour from our community ?
>>
>> 2) Do you think such a 'KDE Program' is worth and would help in
>> fostering the adoption of KDE in universities and in alleviating some
>> initial contribution barriers ?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> --
>> Sandro
>>
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>
>
>
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