[Haskell-cafe] Summer of Code

[Donald Bruce Stewart]

bulat.ziganshin:
> Hello Bryan,
> 
> Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 2:24:21 AM, you wrote:
> 
> > I am wondering if there are any Summer of Code projects that I would
> > be able to do for the Haskell community.
> 
> of 9 projects started last year, only 1 or 2 was successful. so i
> think that retaking one of projects selected last year may be a good
> idea

7 were successful, 2 were unsuccessful. This was above average for
Google SoC (they originally planned for more than 50% failure) and we
can be considered very succesful! Some other .orgs had dramatically
worse rates.

> to Donald: afair, you was written some report about this SoC. can you
> please explain status quo of projects started last year? is it
> possible to restart unsuccessful ones again?

Certainly. 

> 
> to all: i think, now it's the good time to start thinking about
> projects we need. last year one-week schedule was too fast
> 
> i'm completely agree with Donald in that last year some participants was
> Haskell novices and this paid project was the first program they ever
> tried to write in Haskell :) 

As far as I remember, all of the participants had previous haskell
knowledge. The point of the SoC though is to bring *new* hackers into the
community, who hopefully become core contributors.

We had several SoC guys at the recent hackathon, who wouldn't have been
there  if not for the SoC. You see SoC participants helping out in all
sorts of ways in the community now. So it really worked rather well.

I'm looking forward to another crop of hackers for this years projects!

-- Don