Re: Summer of Code projects

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Ian,

* Ian Lance Taylor wrote on Sun, Apr 30, 2006 at 09:37:45PM CEST:
> Hi, I proposed a Summer of Code (code.google.com/soc/) project for
> autoconf, as seen on:
>     http://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/ideas.html
> I don't know if any student will sign up for it.  If somebody does, is
> there any autoconf maintainer who would be willing to be a mentor?

I'm not an Autoconf maintainer, don't have too much time on my hands,
and will not be available between 10th of July and 3rd of August at
least.  Given those constraints, I'll probably be better suited as
backup mentor; but if noone steps up, and this is deemed enough, I'd
also accept being a mentor.

Thinking about this before, I had a few reservations as to the rather
steep learning curve of Autoconf.  But the proposed project may be quite
well-suited for a student project, as it deals with a rather isolated
part of Autoconf.  Other possible projects (e.g., improving Fortran
support in the autotools, or making Libtool deal better with indirect
library dependencies or/and cross compilation, or rewriting Autoconf to
use shell functions) seem much more involved.

Is there some experience about how much work mentoring is, and how much
administrative work it is?  Do the mentors sign up right away or only
after a student has signed up?

Cheers,
Ralf