[gentoo-dev] Re: Google SOC 2008

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

joshua jackson <tsunam@gentoo.org> posted 47C4A08C.3040708@gentoo.org,
excerpted below, on  Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:28:12 -0800:

> Rémi Cardona wrote:
>> joshua jackson a écrit :
>>> 2) We need mentors, so far confirmed I have: Diego and Saleem
>>
>> What kind of work is involved there? I wouldn't mind being a mentor but
>> I'd like to know a bit more about what's expected from a "good" mentor.

> There's a few requirements. Being decent in a language or multiple
> languages would certainly be a plus, as the students are writing code.
> having someone writing something in C or C++ when you've never touched
> it wouldn't exactly work out that well obviously.
> 
> Having time to interact with the student as well. [snip]

I saw some discussion earlier about the possibility/goal of having backup 
mentors as well.  Someone that would keep familiar enough with what's 
going on to step in if the primary mentor has "things" happen and isn't 
as available as they intended to be, but (unless the two team as true co-
mentors) wouldn't need to do the detail code reviewing, performance 
auditing, or whatever, unless those "things" /did/ happen to the primary 
mentor.

IOW, someone to keep the whole project afloat if something does happen to 
the primary mentor/gentoo-contact-point.  If I'm not mistaken, the 
original comment I read suggesting this pointed out that there had been a 
need for a backup mentor for at least one project, that had ended up not 
going much of anywhere because there wasn't one.  Such a run of events 
would certainly be a shame, both for Gentoo and for the student in 
question, so if it can be avoided...

Of course, with only two mentors (now possibly three) volunteered so far, 
that's not so practical, but perhaps there are some who would prefer to 
avoid primary mentorship if possible, but wouldn't mind doing it if it 
becomes necessary to avoid /dev/null-ing the project.

It's also possible some would be available as co-mentors.

So anyone qualified and interested, I'm sure it'll help both Gentoo and 
the student you backup- or co-mentor. =8^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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