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developer docs: Update GSoC documentation.

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docs/contributing/gsoc-ideas.md
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## About us
[Zulip](https://zulip.com) is a powerful, open source team chat
application. Zulip has a web app, a cross-platform mobile app for iOS
and Android, a cross-platform desktop app, and over 100 native
integrations, all open source.
[Zulip](https://zulip.com) the only modern team chat app that is ideal for both
live and asynchronous conversations. Zulip has a web app, a cross-platform
mobile app for iOS and Android, cross-platform desktop and terminal apps, and
over 100 native integrations. The entire Zulip codebase is 100% open source.
Zulip has gained a considerable amount of traction since it was
[released as open source software][oss-release] in late 2015, with
code contributions from [over 700 people](https://zulip.com/team)
from all around the world. Thousands of people use Zulip every single
day, and your work on Zulip will have impact on the daily experiences
of a large and rapidly growing number of people.
Zulip has been gaining in popularity since it was [released as open source
software][oss-release] in late 2015, with code contributions from [over 700
people](https://zulip.com/team) from all around the world. Thousands of people
use Zulip every day, and your work on Zulip will have meaningful impact
on their experience.
[oss-release]: https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2015/09/open-sourcing-zulip-a-dropbox-hack-week-project/
As an organization, we value high-quality, responsive mentorship and
making sure our product quality is extremely high -- you can expect to
experience disciplined code reviews by highly experienced
engineers. Since Zulip is a team chat product, your GSoC experience
with the Zulip project will be highly interactive.
As an organization, we value engaged, responsive mentorship and making sure our
product quality is extremely high. You can expect to receive disciplined code
reviews by highly experienced engineers. Since Zulip is a team chat product,
your GSoC experience with the Zulip project will be highly interactive.
As part of that commitment, Zulip has over 160,000 words of
> _“The experience of working with Zulip for the summer was really phenomenal and
> taught me a lot about software development and working with a community. Zulip
> has one of the best open source communities out there who are super friendly
> and welcoming. You learn a lot just by watching others work and talk.”_ – Sai
> Rohitth Chiluka, Zulip GSoC 2021 participant
As part of our commitment to mentorship, Zulip has over 160,000 words of
[documentation for
developers](../index.html#welcome-to-the-zulip-documentation), much of
it designed to explain not just how Zulip works, but why Zulip works
the way that it does.
developers](../index.html#welcome-to-the-zulip-documentation), much of it
designed to explain not just how Zulip works, but why Zulip works the way that
it does. To learn more about our mission and values, check out [this blog
post](https://blog.zulip.com/2021/04/28/why-zulip-is-on-github-sponsors/)!
### Our history with Google Open Source Programs
## The Zulip GSoC experience
Zulip has been a GSoC mentoring organization since 2016, and we aim
for 15-20 GSoC students each summer. We have some of the highest
standards of any GSoC organization; successful applications generally
have dozens of commits integrated into Zulip or other open source
projects by the time we review their application. See [our
contributing guide](../overview/contributing.md) for details on
getting involved with GSoC.
Zulip has been a GSoC mentoring organization since 2016, and we to accept 15-20
GSoC participants each summer. We have also mentored several interns through the
[Outreachy](https://www.outreachy.org/) program, and hundreds of Google Code-In
participants.
Zulip participated in GSoC 2016 and mentored three successful students
officially (plus 4 more who did their proposed projects unofficially).
We had 14 (+3) students in 2017, 10 (+3) students in 2018, 17 (+1) in
2019, and 18 in 2020. We've also mentored five Outreachy interns and
hundreds of Google Code-In participants (several of who are major
contributors to the project today).
Zulip operates under a **group mentorship** model. While you will have an
assigned mentor, you will also get lots of feedback from other members of the
[Zulip development community](https://zulip.com/development-community/) by
posting your questions and ideas in public streams. We encourage GSoC
participants to help each other out as well!
While GSoC switched to a shorter coding period in 2021, we expect to
run a program that's very similar to past years in terms of how we
select and mentor students during the Spring (though with an
appropriately reduced expectation for students' time commitment during
the summer).
Many GSoC participants stay involved with the project past the official end of
the program. A number of folks who get started with GSoC go on to mentor the
next cohort of participants, and several have joined Zulip's team of core
maintainers.
### Expectations for GSoC students
To learn more about the experience of doing GSoC with Zulip, check out our
[Zulip's Google Summer of Code 2021 blog
post](https://blog.zulip.com/2021/09/30/google-summer-of-code-2021/). Our [guide
for having a great summer with Zulip](../contributing/summer-with-zulip.md) will
also give you a feel for what it's like to do GSoC with us.
[Our guide for having a great summer with Zulip](../contributing/summer-with-zulip.md)
is focused on what one should know once doing a summer project with
Zulip. But it has a lot of useful advice on how we expect students to
interact, above and beyond what is discussed in Google's materials.
[What makes a great Zulip contributor](../overview/contributing.html#what-makes-a-great-zulip-contributor)
also has some helpful information on what we look for during the application
process.
We also recommend reviewing
[the official GSoC resources](https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/resources/)
-- especially
[the student manual](https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/resources/manual).
Finally, keep your eye on
[the GSoC timeline](https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline). The
student application deadline is April 13, 2021. However, as is
discussed in detail later in this document, we recommend against
working on a proposal until 2 weeks before the deadline.
> _“It has been the best summer I've ever had! I'm thankful to my mentors, my
> peers, Zulip, and Google for providing me an opportunity of getting involved
> in the community! You have helped and supported me to become a better software
> developer and a passionate open-source contributor.”_ – Sarthak Garg, Zulip
> GSoC 2021 participant
## Getting started
@@ -79,26 +69,31 @@ We have an easy-to-set-up development environment, and a library of
tasks that are great for first-time contributors. Use
[our first-time Zulip developer guide](../overview/contributing.html#your-first-codebase-contribution)
to get your Zulip development environment set up and to find your first issue. If you have any
trouble, please speak up in
[#GSoC](https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/14-GSoC) on
[the Zulip development community server](https://zulip.com/development-community/)
trouble, please speak up in the
[#GSoC](https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/14-GSoC) stream on the
[Zulip development community server](https://zulip.com/development-community/)
(use your name as the topic).
## Application tips, and how to be a strong candidate
## Application tips, and how to become a strong candidate
You'll be following [GSoC's application process
instructions](https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/), and
making at least one successful pull request before the application
deadline, to help us assess you as a developer. Students who we accept
generally have five or more merged, or nearly merged, pull requests
(usually including at least a couple which are significant,
e.g. having 100+ lines of changes or show you have done significant
debugging).
Zulip has some of the highest standards of any GSoC organization. The most
important component of a strong application is to demonstrate your ability to
contribute to a large codebase. Accepted applicants generally have five or more
merged (or nearly merged) pull requests, including at least a couple of
significant changes (on the order of 100+ lines).
Getting started earlier is better, so you have more time to learn,
make contributions, and make a good proposal.
The quality of your best work is more important than the quantity, so be
sure to follow our coding guidelines and test your work before submitting it for
review. Don't worry if you make mistakes in your first few
contributions! Everyone makes mistakes getting started — just make sure you don't
make the same mistakes next time.
Your application should include the following:
It's best to get started with Zulip early, so that you have time to learn, make
contributions, and put together a strong proposal. However, we recommend waiting
until the last few weeks to formally write up and submit your application.
The GSoC 2022 application deadline is April 19, 2022. Please follow [GSoC's application process
instructions](https://google.github.io/gsocguides/student/). Your application should include the following:
- Details on any experience you have related to the technologies used
by Zulip, or related to our product approach.
@@ -119,20 +114,35 @@ how to do disciplined, professional software engineering, where they
can demonstrate through reasoning and automated tests that their code
is correct.
While only one contribution is required to be considered for the
program, we find that the strongest applicants make multiple
contributions throughout the application process, including after the
application deadline.
For all of our projects, an important skill to develop is a good
command of Git; read [our Git guide](../git/overview.md) in full to
learn how to use it well. Of particular importance is mastering using
Git rebase so that you can construct commits that are clearly correct
and explain why they are correct. We highly recommend investing in
learning a [graphical Git client](../git/setup.md) and learning to
write good commit structures and messages; this is more important than
any other single skill for contributing to a large open source
project like Zulip.
We are more interested in candidates if we see them submitting good
contributions to Zulip projects, helping other applicants on [GitHub](https://github.com/zulip/zulip)
and on [chat.zulip.org](https://zulip.com/development-community),
learning from our suggestions, [trying to solve their own obstacles and
then asking well-formed questions](https://www.mattringel.com/2013/09/30/you-must-try-and-then-you-must-ask/),
and developing and sharing project ideas and project proposals which
are plausible and useful.
We are excited about candidates who submit good contributions to Zulip projects,
help other applicants on [GitHub](https://github.com/zulip/zulip) and on
[chat.zulip.org](https://zulip.com/development-community), learn from our
suggestions, [try to solve their own obstacles and then ask well-formed
questions](https://www.mattringel.com/2013/09/30/you-must-try-and-then-you-must-ask/),
and develop well thought out project proposals.
## Questions are Important
For the first time in 2022, being a student is not required in order to apply to
GSoC. We are happy to accept both student and non-student participants.
Our documentation on [what makes a great Zulip
contributor](../overview/contributing.html#what-makes-a-great-zulip-contributor)
offers some additional helpful information. We also recommend reviewing the
[official GSoC
resources](https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/resources/),
especially the [Contributor/Student
Guide](https://google.github.io/gsocguides/student/).
## Questions are important
A successful GSoC revolves around asking well-formed questions.
A well-formed question helps you learn, respects the person answering,
@@ -185,96 +195,48 @@ output than screenshots. And be sure to read the traceback before
posting it; often the error message explains the problem or hints that
you need more scrollback than just the last 20 lines.
## Mentors
Zulip has dozens of longtime contributors who sign up to mentoring
projects. We usually decide who will mentor which projects based in
part on who is a good fit for the needs of each student as well as
technical expertise as well as who has available time during the
summer. You can reach us via
[#GSoC](https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/14-GSoC) on [the Zulip
development community server](https://zulip.com/development-community/),
(compose a new stream message with your name as the topic).
Zulip operates under group mentorship. That means you should generally
post in Zulip public streams, not send private messages, for
assistance. Our preferred approach is to just post in an appropriate
Zulip public stream .org and someone will help you. We list the Zulip
contributors who are experts for various projects by name below; they
will likely be able to provide you with the best feedback on your
proposal (feel free to @-mention them in your Zulip post). In
practice, this allows project leadership to be involved in mentoring
all students.
However, the first and most important thing to do for building a
strong application is to show your skills by contributing to a large
open source project like Zulip, to show that you can work effectively
in a large codebase (it doesn't matter what part of Zulip, and we're
happy to consider work in other open source projects). The quality of
your best work is more important to us than the quantity; so be sure
to test your work before submitting it for review and follow our
coding guidelines (and don't worry if you make mistakes in your first
few contributions! Everyone makes mistakes getting started. Just
make sure you don't make the same mistakes next time).
Once you have several PRs merged (or at least one significant PR
merged), you can start discussing with the Zulip development community
the project you'd like to do, and developing a specific project plan.
We recommend discussing what you're thinking in Zulip public streams,
so it's easy to get quick feedback from whoever is online.
## Project ideas
These are the seeds of ideas; you will need to do research on the
Zulip codebase, read issues on GitHub, and talk with developers to put
together a complete project proposal. It's also fine for you to come
up with your own project ideas. As you'll see below, you can put
together a great project around one of the
[area labels](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/labels) on GitHub; each
has a cluster of problems in one part of the Zulip project that we'd
love to improve.
Once you have several PRs merged (or at least one significant PR merged), you
can start developing a specific project plan. We recommend discussing your ideas
in the [#GSoC](https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/14-GSoC) stream in the Zulip
development community, in order to get quick feedback from whoever is online.
We don't believe in labeling projects by difficulty (e.g. a project
that involves writing a lot of documentation will be hard for some
great programmers, and a UI design project might be hard for a great
backend programmer, while a great writer might have trouble doing
performance work). To help you find a great project, we list the
skills needed, and try to emphasize where strong skills with
particular tools are likely to be important for a given project.
This section contains the seeds of project ideas; you will need to do research
on the Zulip codebase, read issues on GitHub, and talk with developers to put
together a complete project proposal. It's also fine to come up with your own
project ideas. As you'll see below, you can put together a great project around
one of the [area labels](https://github.com/zulip/zulip/labels) on GitHub; each
has a cluster of problems in one part of the Zulip project that we'd love to
improve.
For all of our projects, an important skill to develop is a good
command of Git; read [our Git guide](../git/overview.md) in full to
learn how to use it well. Of particular importance is mastering using
Git rebase so that you can construct commits that are clearly correct
and explain why they are correct. We highly recommend investing in
learning a [graphical Git client](../git/setup.md) and learning to
write good commit structures and messages; this is more important than
any other single skill for contributing to a large open source
project like Zulip.
We don't believe in labeling projects by difficulty, because the level of
difficulty is highly dependent on your particular skills. To help you find
a great project, we list the skills needed, and try to emphasize where strong
skills with particular tools are likely to be important for a given project.
We will never reject a strong student because their project idea was
not a top priority, whereas we often reject students proposing
projects important to the project where we haven't seen compelling
work from the student.
We will never reject a strong applicant because their project idea was
not a top priority. On the flip side, we often reject applicants proposing
valuable projects when we haven't seen compelling work from the applicant.
More important to us than specific deliverables in a project proposal
is a clear body of work to focus on; E.g. if we see a proposal with 8
Markdown processor issues, we'll interpret this as a student excited
is a clear body of work to focus on. E.g., if we see a proposal with 8
Markdown processor issues, we'll interpret this as an applicant excited
to work on the Markdown processor for the summer, even if the specific
set of 8 issues may not be the right ones to invest in.
### Focus areas
For 2021, we are particularly interested in GSoC students who have
For 2022, we are particularly interested in GSoC contributors who have
strong skills at visual design, HTML/CSS, mobile development,
performance optimization, or Electron. So if you're a student with
performance optimization, or Electron. So if you're an applicant with
those skills and are looking for an organization to join, we'd love to
talk to you!
The Zulip project has a huge surface area, so even when we're focused
on something, a huge amount of essential work goes into other parts of
on something, a large amount of essential work goes into other parts of
the project. Every area of Zulip could benefit from the work of a
student with strong programming skills; so don't feel discouraged if
contributor with strong programming skills, so don't feel discouraged if
the areas mentioned above are not your main strength.
As a data point, in Summer 2017, we had 4 students working on the
@@ -284,6 +246,9 @@ design, 2 on our development tooling and automated testing
infrastructure, and the remaining 4 on various other parts of the
backend and core web app.
**Please note that the project ideas described below have not yet been updated
for GSoC 2022.**
### Full stack and web frontend focused projects
Code: [github.com/zulip/zulip -- Python, Django, JavaScript, and
@@ -598,29 +563,22 @@ Experts: Rein Zustand, Steve Howell
## Circulating proposals (March to April)
If you're applying to GSoC, we'd like for you to publicly post a few
sections of your proposal -- the project summary, list of
deliverables, and timeline -- some place public on the Web, a week or
two before the application deadline. That way, the whole developer
community -- not just the mentors and administrators -- have a chance
to give you feedback and help you improve your proposal.
If you're applying to GSoC, we'd like you to publicly post a rough draft of
a few sections of your proposal at least one week before the application
deadline. That way, the whole development community has a chance to give you
feedback and help you improve your proposal.
Where should you publish your draft? We prefer Dropbox Paper or Google
Docs, since those platforms allow people to look at the text without
having to log in or download a particular app, and you can update the
draft as you improve your idea. In either case, you should post the
draft for feedback in
[#GSoC](https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/14-GSoC).
- **What to post:** Please include (1) Links to your contributions
to Zulip (or other projects), and (2) a paragraph or two explaining
what you plan to work on.
- **How to post:** We generally prefer Dropbox Paper or Google
Docs, since those platforms allow people to look at the text without
having to log in or download a particular app, and you can update the
draft as you improve your idea.
- **How to ask for feedback:** Please post a link to your draft in the
[#GSoC](https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/14-GSoC) stream in the [Zulip
development community](https://zulip.com/development-community/).
Rough is fine! The ideal first draft to get feedback from the
community on should include primarily (1) links to your contributions
to Zulip (or other projects) and (2) a paragraph or two explaining
what you plan to work on. Your friends are likely better able to help
you improve the sections of your application explaining who you are,
and this helps the community focus feedback on the areas you can most
improve (e.g. either doing more contributions or adjusting the project
plan).
We hope to hear from you! And thanks for being interested in
Zulip. We're always happy to help volunteers get started contributing
to our open source project, whether or not they go through GSoC.
Thanks for being interested in Zulip! We're always happy to help volunteers get
started contributing to our open-source project, whether or not they go through
GSoC. We hope to hear from you soon!