[Soc2006] final evaluations needed; better tracking

[emf]

Jonathan LaCour wrote:
> and these students
> should be able to stay on track without an excessive amount of
> supervision.

There is no "track" as far as I can tell. I spent a large amount of time 
in the brambles. Perhaps other SoC projects were so clearly demarcated 
they were 'just' a matter of filling in the code. Mine certainly seems 
like it; redo the web interface of Mailman. I still found myself at many 
points needing guidance, and I definitely wasted a lot of time that 
could have been avoided with some interaction of more knowledgeable people.

Looking back on it, I probably should have been posting more to the 
python list and other places like that, but instead I tried to find my 
own answer. That's generally a good principle in the open source world, 
but less sound when time is short and there's expertise available.

>   I look at this as an opportunity for a student to learn how to be a
> responsible member of a development team,

While I think your view of SoC is itself flawed, let's take your premise 
for the moment. I've worked in two firms that did software development; 
in neither of those did communication happen once or twice a week 
between team members. I suspect that interacting practically every day 
is more the norm for software development teams.

> and coddling them is not
> going to help to teach them responsibility and discipline.

I hadn't realized it was the Summer of Responsibility and Discipline.

Since the PSF has a finite amount of slots, once it has accepted 
proposals it appears to me that it's in everyone's best interest to 
maximize the amount of Code produced during the summer.

I feel like I would have been more productive if I could have had a 
place to talk with other python-coders interested in the summer of code; 
some sort of water-cooler environment where I could ask quick questions 
and that sort of thing.

immature-yet-full-of-sloth-ly yours,

~ethan fremen