Re: GSoC in 2018?

Hi all,

I've never been involved with GSoC (and it's fine). As an outsider, I would
like to provide my feedback on what went well during the previous seasons
and what could be improved for this year. I don't mean to put the blame on
anybody. Quite the opposite, really. A lot of good work has been
accomplished.

The organisational aspect seemed fine to me. Finding project ideas,
interacting
with the GSoC team to register the ScummVM organisation. Welcoming,
encouraging
and selecting students.

The mentoring part seemed good as well with each student being able to find
help
easily.

What I'm having trouble with is the lack of transparency of the whole
production
period. To the outsider a GSoC project really begins at the end of the
summer
with a very large pull request being submitted. This is a problem because:
* Very large pull requests are hard to review.
* Once all the code has been written and tested, it's too late to provide
  feedback on the design.
* It's too late to provide advice so the next bits are produced with a
better
  quality.

Another pain point for me is that focus seems to be too much on respecting
the
schedule / producing large amounts of features. This sometimes comes at the
cost
of code quality. Unfortunately history has shown that a lot of students
disappear at the end of the summer and don't stay to maintain the code.
The regular team members are left to deal with large amounts of hastily
written code.

To improve, my proposal is as follows:
* The student and the mentor periodically decide on the next tasks. Each
task
  is designed to take at most 2 or 3 days of work.
* Tasks can be either design tasks or implementation tasks. Design tasks
result
  in a short RFC document describing the feature, the chosen
implementation, and
  the motivation for the implementation. Implementation tasks result in
code.
  Both kinds of tasks are reviewed by the team through pull requests.
* Design tasks are mandatory for non trivial non engine work.
* A task is 'done' when the associated pull request has been approved by the
  mentor (or a co-mentor) and at least one other team member.
* There can be at most two open tasks at any given time (one that's being
worked
  on, and one that's being reviewed).
* Failure to meet the schedule and the amount of produced features are not
critera
  used to evaluate students. This is made very clear to the students.
* The focus is on building solid and well designed foundation that can
easily
  be maintained / completed by others (possibly GSoC students the next
year).
* All discussion relevant to GSoC is public for the whole team to see
  (IRC, mailing list, ...)

I'm all in favor of ScummVM participating in GSoC this year.

I'm available to mentor or co-mentor OpenGL or ResidualVM-related tasks if
desired.

Bastien

2018-01-16 10:47 GMT+01:00 Einar Johan Trøan Sømåen <[email protected]>
:

> I'll check my calendar, but tentatively I'm fine with mentoring either of
> those tasks (or co-mentoring both for that matter)
>
> Einar Johan
>
> tir. 16. jan. 2018 kl. 10.43 skrev Arnaud Boutonné <[email protected]
> >:
>
>> Hi somaen
>>
>> Would you have some time to mentor it? T0by, the same question to you?
>>
>> btw, who could mentor the ICB task?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Arnaud
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 10:40 AM, Einar Johan Trøan Sømåen <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> There is also the wintermute 3D task, which I still think is a decent
>>> one. So I'm in favour.
>>>
>>> Einar Johan
>>>
>>> tir. 16. jan. 2018 kl. 10.13 skrev Arnaud Boutonné <
>>> [email protected]>:
>>>
>>>> Hey Pawel :)
>>>>
>>>> Congratulations for the release of v0.3 ... And also, it shows activity
>>>> on the project which is really cool.
>>>> Did someone consider the Penumbra engine, yet? :)
>>>>
>>>> See you
>>>> Arnaud
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 9:21 AM, Paweł Kołodziejski <
>>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ICB for ResidualVM is still valid task.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 16 Jan 2018, at 09:18, Arnaud Boutonné <[email protected]>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Eugene, hi everybody
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm in favor of applying this year again. We can work on last year's
>>>>> list (http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Summer_of_Code/GSoC_Ideas_2017).
>>>>> Sludge engine and Supernova's first game are done, and the 2nd supernova
>>>>> game can be used as a task.
>>>>> 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).
>>>>>
>>>>> My favorite task is the one about shaders/scalers. It's been lying
>>>>> there foreever, and could give us a really nice outcome.
>>>>>
>>>>> 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.
>>>>>
>>>>> Oh, and I volunteer to be a mentor this year.
>>>>>
>>>>> 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?)
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>> Arnaud
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 12:40 AM, Eugene Sandulenko <[email protected]>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Team,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Should we apply for the GSoC this year? Do we have enough ideas and
>>>>>> mentors?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Eugene
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Scummvm-devel mailing list
>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>> http://lists.scummvm.org/listinfo/scummvm-devel
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Scummvm-devel mailing list
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>
>>
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