Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of SoCAdvice

Timestamp:

Mar 2, 2016, 4:24:26 PM (7 years ago)

Author:

Niall Douglas

Comment:

--

SoCAdvice

@@ +1 @@
+= Advice to Boost Summer of Code students from former student Louis Dionne =
+
+----
+Dear prospective GSoC student,
+
+First of all, congratulations for your interest in doing GSoC with Boost!
+If you have interest in C++, then Boost is definitely an interesting open
+source project to contribute to. Contributing will teach you a lot of
+useful things, and it may also increase your visibility for prospective
+employers. All in all, something very good for a CS student.
+
+To my knowledge, most students selected for GSoC with Boost have prior
+experience working with the Boost libraries. I'm not saying you can't be
+selected if you don't have prior experience, but it helps. 
+
+To find a project that might be interesting for you, I would suggest
+selecting an area of computer science that is of interest to you, and then
+seeing if there is a Boost library related to that area. If so, I would
+suggest becoming familiar with the library and its limitations, and then
+devising a project related to it (e.g. adding some feature or improving
+something in the library). Once you have something in mind, the best is to
+reach out on the Boost.Devel [1] mailing list, where you may be able to
+find someone willing to mentor you. Usually, it will be someone with
+significant experience with the library that you're proposing to work on.
+You can also look on this page [2] for GSoC project ideas.
+
+The other way to go about would be to simply find a library that needs
+work and then propose a project related to this library on the mailing
+list, but without necessarily taking your own CS interest as the first
+motivation. I think this can be made to work, but I would probably not
+advise going down this road. Completing GSoC is a large amount of work,
+and I believe you have to be somehow driven by passion to be successful.
+Of course, this is just my personal taste.
+
+Yet another possibility (what I did) is to have a serious ongoing personal
+project that would be a good fit for Boost, and to propose working on it
+during GSoC with the intent of making it part of Boost. This requires some
+preparation with the community before proposing the project for GSoC, and
+it requires finding a mentor willing to help you push your project
+through, but it can definitely be done.
+
+All in all, the best advice I can give you is to find something you LOVE
+working on and to do your homework. Finding something you love is
+important because you'll be working on the same project for the whole
+summer, and probably after too. Also, it will give potential mentors more
+hope that you might be successful with the project. Doing your homework
+(coming prepared) is important because Boost, as most online communities,
+is very talent driven. If you come unprepared to the mailing list and ask
+something like 
+
+   Hey, I would like to contribute to Boost! Where do I start?
+
+People will politely point out available online resources to know where to
+start, but you will not generate any special interest. Everyone is busy,
+and there is so much stuff going on that you will never get noticed if you
+don't stand out of the crowd. Instead, carefully prepare your entry into
+the mailing list and go with something like
+
+   Library X has features Y and Z, but feature W would also be useful
+   because of [REASON FOR YOUR PROJECT]. I have already thought about how
+   we could go about improving the library: [SHOW WHAT YOU ALREADY DID]
+
+   Would anyone be interested in mentoring such a GSoC project?
+
+Of course, this is just a rough template, but the idea here is that you
+must introduce your project, justify it and then show that you have
+already thought about the problem. Then, and only then, someone might step
+up and accept to mentor you. But no one will do the work of preparing the
+project for you.
+
+Finally, if you have questions regarding the actual functioning of GSoC
+within Boost, you may want to contact the GSoC administrator for Boost at
+gsoc-admin@boost.org.
+
+Doing GSoC with Boost is a ton of work; I'm speaking from experience since
+I've done it twice. However, it is also one of the most rewarding
+experience in terms of professional growth. If you're willing to give it
+all you've got, then I'd say don't think anymore and go for it.
+
+Good luck!
+Louis Dionne
+
+P.S.:
+You might also want to consider applying to the student/volunteer program
+for the C++Now conference [3]. This can be a great way to get to know the
+Boost community, and it can also be a great entry to the world of modern
+C++.
+
+[1]: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel
+[2]: https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/SoC2016
+[3]: http://cppnow.org/student_vol_program/