3 ms·

Up for the info. The difference here is that the only schedule we're under is to have commits to the code base by the end of the semester. Though this is more

Up for the info. The difference here is that the only schedule we're under is to have commits to the code base by the end of the semester. Though this is more structured than some guy's side project, it comes with the benefit of deliverables being a necessary part of passing the class. Beyond that, in this particular case, we're talking about two individuals who've both kind of worked our way into code bases before. Specifically, we both made small patches for the Mozilla code-base as part of the pre-requisite course [1] and I've been doing some research coding that's involved a lot of reading and manipulating linux network internals; tools like LXR and MXR have been invaluable in getting there. [1] Regarding the pre-requisite course, there's an open source project to be done every semester. Students work in groups of 2. Last semester, patches were made to Firefox, Chrome, Pidgin, FreeCol, Scala Testing Suite, and the Scala Eclipse plugin. I'd be happy to talk more about this if interested, but it was a really powerful thing when it came to learning how to get into a code base and write production code.

celticjames 17y ago
It's really important to know at the start of the semester what projects will be wanted and needed. Students may have their own ideas for what they want to do, but it's so much easier to get the ear of a developer when you are working on something they want. This is critical if you need to get something committed. Another commenter mentioned Google Summer of Code. The projects that are successful for gsoc are the ones where students and mentors did a lot of talking about what the community wants before submitting a proposal.
- alexgartrell 17y ago
  One thing we learned in doing the open source projects in the prior course (I took then TA'ed it) is that you kind of just pick up whatever tickets the project has laying around. In this case, we're definitely looking for a "Please do X, Y, and Z" situation. So we're just looking for an X, Y, and Z type thing that might fit with our interests; not trying to squeeze our interests into a project.
  - metzby 17y ago
    A big part of admission into Google Summer of Code is having a good list of suggested projects.

celticjames 17y ago

It's really important to know at the start of the semester what projects will be wanted and needed. Students may have their own ideas for what they want to do, but it's so much easier to get the ear of a developer when you are working on something they want. This is critical if you need to get something committed. Another commenter mentioned Google Summer of Code. The projects that are successful for gsoc are the ones where students and mentors did a lot of talking about what the community wants before submitting a proposal.

alexgartrell 17y ago
One thing we learned in doing the open source projects in the prior course (I took then TA'ed it) is that you kind of just pick up whatever tickets the project has laying around. In this case, we're definitely looking for a "Please do X, Y, and Z" situation. So we're just looking for an X, Y, and Z type thing that might fit with our interests; not trying to squeeze our interests into a project.
- metzby 17y ago
  A big part of admission into Google Summer of Code is having a good list of suggested projects.