[Monotone-devel] Summer of Code kick-off

[Nathaniel Smith]

[CC'ed to monotone-devel]

Hello,

As I guess you know by now, your Summer of Code application to the
monotone project was accepted.  Congrats, and welcome to our jolly
band :-).  (Hopefully you're all excited about this too!  If you've
changed your mind or something... now would be a good time to let us
know.)

So, what happens next?

I know at least some of you still have exams to do and such, and won't
be able to start for real for another few weeks or so.  There are a
few things that would be good to do now, though, say within the next
few days:
   -- subscribe to the monotone-devel mailing list, if you haven't
      already:
        http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/monotone-devel
   -- start hanging out in the #monotone IRC channel, on the OFTC
      network (irc.oftc.net).
   -- send a message introducing yourself to the mailing list
      (address@hidden) including at least:
      -- some sort of brief introduction of who you are
      -- your email address and IRC nickname
      -- your rough schedule (especially start data and end date)
      -- some sort of description of what you're planning to do (some
         of us read your app, some didn't, all are curious and may
         have suggestions)
      -- some idea of what you're going to do _first_; the order you
         tackle things in can matter a lot

Once you get started, we'll expect weekly reports to the list on what
you did last week and what you plan to do next week, just to make sure
it's clear what's going on.  Let's say, umm... on Tuesdays.  Sure.
(Unless there are objections.)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me (you'll find I usually
have _some_ sort of opinion on things...), or the mailing list, or
your official mentor, who is:
  Timothy Brownawell, Zachary Weinberg: me, Nathaniel Smith <address@hidden>
  Bjorn De Middelaer: Matthew "kinetik" Gregan <address@hidden>
  Cheah Zi Bin: me again for now, but that's because of some weirdness
    in making the SoC web app work; once Google fixes things on their
    end then either Richard Levitte <address@hidden> or Stefan
    Buehler <address@hidden> will be the mentor-of-record.

These people are your official points of contact, but we're a pretty
informal group, without any official chain of command or anything.
Don't feel like they're the only ones you can talk to.  Most
communication happens either on the mailing list or on IRC.  Helpful
URLs:
  Mailing list archives:
    http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.monotone.devel
  IRC logs:
    http://colabti.de/irclogger/irclogger_logs/monotone
  Wiki (often used for working out designs and general scratch space):
    http://venge.net/monotone/wiki
  Monotone manual:
    http://venge.net/monotone/docs

Especially, we're happy to help if you have trouble getting started --
don't be embarrassed, there's always a hump to get over there in
working out how things basically work... just ask.  We can answer
questions on IRC, give suggestions on "warm up" tasks, etc.

There, that should be enough to get us going.  This should be fun :-).

Cheers,
-- Nathaniel

-- 
Damn the Solar System.  Bad light; planets too distant; pestered with
comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better one myself.
  -- Lord Jeffrey