[Rd] Google Summer of Code 2009

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 20 February 2009 at 12:06, Friedrich Leisch wrote:
| >>>>> On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:52:19 -0600,
| >>>>> Dirk Eddelbuettel (DE) wrote:
| 
|   > [ Cool how nobody cared about Fritz' request not to post ideas yet :) ]
| 
| Well, I kind of expected that ;-)
| 
| See also below.
|   
|   > [ I broadly share Oleg's "wouldn't it be nice to have better plot devices"
|   >   wish.  But I don't think it is a three-month summer target,
| 
| Yes, that's exactly what came to my mind first: As usual, please do
| read docs before you post ... in this case the format of SOC (I
| included the link in my original email, googling for "summer of code"
| will also take you there): a student is paid to code three months for
| us, the 3 months inlcude writing documentation. The student will not
| be an expert in R internals, and no magic wizard. The student should
| familiarize himself with the project before the actual coding period,
| but there is only so much you can do in limited time. I think you can
| expect a similar amount of code as in a master/diploma thesis (but
| NOT a dissertation).
| 
| If you had waited for Manuels email you would also have learned about
| another VERY IMPORTANT POINT: The collection of ideas for summer of
| code is not like writing a list of wishes to Santa Claus (or the
| Christkind or whatever your local variation may be): we only need
| ideas which YOU ARE WILLING TO MENTOR, i.e., you write the specs for
| the project, communicate with students interested in the project,
| select the best applicant and supervise the student during the coding
| period. I am not sure everyone on this thread is aware about this (if
| all of you were I apologize). If you propose an idea, you
| simultaneously agree to volunteer a considerable amount of your own
| time. But that time can really be worth the effort (otherwise we
| wouldn't be doing it).

I am not sure if you're lecturing just to me or the audience at large; if it
just me allow me to remind you that I mentored last year and helped to bring
a project from proposal to inclusion onto CRAN and into user's hands.  In
fact, I mentored another one (on cran source to deb package automation) at
Debian as well.  So yes, I am in fact fully aware of most of these points.

I would at this point also like to correct something you said in the earlier
mail where you said that may get "four to six slots". I am doubtful about
that. O verall number of GSoC slots are _down_ as per Leslie. We have no
priors on whether more or less organisations are admitted or not. If I were a
betting man, I'd say three to four slots.

So let's make them count.

Dirk

-- 
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.