| 405 | | If after reading all of the standalone project ideas above you are finding that none excites you, we have collected below a series of smaller work items none of which alone would be big enough to make up a full GSoC, but which could be combined to form a very valuable GSoC indeed. The following would be excellent start points for students to propose projects themselves. While these ideas are by far not as concrete as projects in the list above, they give students an idea what else they can work on within Boost. They also give students a chance to propose exactly the kind of project they'd like to work on instead of picking one from the predefined projects from above. |
| 406 | | |
| 407 | | Students interested in proposing a mix of the below work items should propose their mix on the Boost mailing list. We will then figure out a suitable mentor for you. |
| | 405 | If after reading all of the standalone project ideas above you are finding that none excites you, we have collected below a series of smaller work items none of which alone would be big enough to make up a full GSoC, but which could be combined to form a very valuable GSoC indeed. The following would be excellent start points for students to propose projects themselves (see below on how to do this). While these ideas are by far not as concrete as projects in the list above, they give students an idea what else they can work on within Boost. They also give students a chance to propose exactly the kind of project they'd like to work on instead of picking one from the predefined projects from above. |
| | 406 | |
| | 407 | Students interested in proposing a mix of the below work items should propose their mix on the Boost mailing list using the instructions below. We will then figure out a suitable mentor for you. |
| | 408 | |
| | 409 | === How to propose a mix of the below work items on the Boost mailing list === |
| | 410 | |
| | 411 | Please do not simply arrive on the list and ask "I want to do GSoC Idea item no X because I don't want to do one of the predesigned GSoC projects on the list. Give me a mentor." as you will likely be ignored as a probable time waster. If you are to propose your own GSoC project, '''it must be of equivalent quality to the precanned GSoC project proposals written by mentors''' already on the ideas page, and by "equivalent", we really do mean '''equivalent''' i.e. very high. This is why mentors take the time to write project proposals for you, because for mentors who are domain experts in their field it is easier to write a high quality GSoC proposal likely to pass peer review and Google's own proposal review than for students who are not domain experts. If you are still really sure you want to invest the very considerable work to propose your own project, do the following before writing to the Boost mailing list with your own proposal: |
| | 412 | |
| | 413 | 1. Research prior art i.e. provide proof in your approach email that you have researched alternative implementations in C++ and other languages of your project proposal. A list of pros and cons of those alternative implementations would be useful and show you really did study the problem. |
| | 414 | |
| | 415 | 2. Have a well designed, concrete, ''realistic'' as a summer project design based on synthesis of the prior art research. It's great to list known unknowns as far as possible. When designing, don't forget well over half the effort in writing a new Boost library goes exclusively into writing documentation and writing unit and functional testing. This is a big reason we need students to have good English, because a lot of writing Boost code is actually writing its documentation. |
| | 416 | |
| | 417 | 3. Ideally students who provide proof they have successfully written a high quality STL algorithm implementation before i.e. can supply a link to an open source copy of their work are far more likely to be well received than those students with no such proof of capability and depth of understanding just how hard writing high quality C++ code is. Be aware we don't really care what grades you received in some CS class - we want to see code you've written. |
| | 418 | |
| | 419 | 4. Failing item three, any evidence or proof demonstrating a good work ethic, and are humble and willing to learn, is always helpful. Good examples of such evidence are code commits fixing bugs in open source projects, or a history of improving documentation for open source projects, or a history of porting code to new platforms or fixing platform specific build problems - all these are excellent pieces of proof because we can verify their accuracy and look at the quality of your work. |
| | 420 | |
| | 421 | If you can provide at least two of the above four points, your custom GSoC proposal is highly likely to be taken seriously, and you'll get plenty of feedback on what needs fixing, plus mentors will volunteer themselves. Miss all of the above factors and no one - student or otherwise - will be taken seriously, and any emails by you to the Boost developers list will probably be ignored. |
| | 422 | |
| | 423 | With all that said, here are the smaller work items which could be combined to form a very valuable GSoC project: |
