paulmataruso/zulip
1
0
Fork 0
mirror of https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git synced 2025-10-31 12:03:46 +00:00
Code Issues Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

docs:: Update GSoC application tips.

Browse Source 
- Add missing link for GitHub.
- Fix broken links to Matt Ringel's blog post.
- Add link to Julia Evans blog post.
- Add section heading for "Questions Are Important."
- Rearrange some content to fit with new section heading.

With additional tweaks from tabbott:
* Avoid linking to chat.zulip.org not via our documentation.
* Avoid the CZO abbreviation.
This commit is contained in:
AEsping
2021-11-19 08:11:08 -06:00
committed by Tim Abbott
parent fdd63546b2
commit 6ad1c5c8ed
1 changed files with 88 additions and 71 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

159
docs/contributing/gsoc-ideas.md
View File

@@ -80,29 +80,29 @@ 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) in
[the Zulip development community server][development-community]
[#GSoC](https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/14-GSoC) on
[the Zulip development community server](https://zulip.com/developer-community/)
(use your name as the topic).
## Application tips, and how to be a strong candidate
You'll be following
[GSoC's application process instructions](https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/). And
we'll be asking you to make at least one successful pull request
before the application deadline, to help us assess you as a developer.
Students who we accept generally have 5 or more pull requests merged
or nearly merged (usually including at least a couple that are
significant, e.g. having 100+ lines of changes or that shows you have
done significant debugging).
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).
Getting started earlier is better, so you have more time to learn,
make contributions, and make a good proposal.
Your application should include the following:
- Details on any experience you have related to the technologies that
Zulip has, or related to our product approach.
- Links to materials to help us evaluate your level of experience and
- Details on any experience you have related to the technologies used
by Zulip, or related to our product approach.
- Links to materials which help us evaluate your level of experience and
how you work, such as personal projects of yours, including any
existing open source or open culture contributions you've made and
any bug reports you've submitted to open source projects.
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ Your application should include the following:
- A description of the project you'd like to do, and why you're
excited about it.
- Some notes on why you're excited about working on Zulip.
- A link to the initial contribution(s) you did.
- A link to your initial contribution(s).
We expect applicants to either have experience with the technologies
relevant to their project or have strong general programming
@@ -125,43 +125,65 @@ contributions throughout the application process, including after the
application deadline.
We are more interested in candidates if we see them submitting good
contributions to Zulip projects, helping other applicants on GitHub
and in
[the Zulip development community][development-community],
learning from our suggestions,
[trying to solve their own obstacles and then asking well-formed
questions](https://blogs.akamai.com/2013/10/you-must-try-and-then-you-must-ask.html),
and developing and sharing project ideas and project proposals that
contributions to Zulip projects, helping other applicants on [GitHub](https://github.com/zulip/zulip)
and on [chat.zulip.org](https://zulip.com/developer-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.
Also, you're going to find that people give you links to pages that
answer your questions. Here's how that often works:
## Questions are Important
1. you [try to solve your problem until you get stuck, including
looking through our code and our documentation, then start formulating
your request for
help](https://blogs.akamai.com/2013/10/you-must-try-and-then-you-must-ask.html)
1. you ask your question
1. someone directs you to a document
1. you go read that document, and try to use it to answer your question
1. you find you are confused about a new thing
1. you ask another question
1. now that you have demonstrated that you have the ability to read,
think, and learn new things, someone has a longer talk with you to
answer your new specific question
1. you and the other person collaborate to improve the document that you
read in step 3 :-)
A successful GSoC revolves around asking well-formed questions.
A well-formed question helps you learn, respects the person answering,
and reduces the time commitment and frustration level of everyone
involved. Asking the right question, to the right person, in the right
way, at the right time, is a skill which requires a lifetime of
fine-tuning, but Zulip makes this a little bit easier by providing a
general structure for asking questions in the Zulip community.
This helps us make a balance between person-to-person discussion and
documentation that everyone can read, so we save time answering common
questions but also get everyone the personal help they need. This will
help you understand the rhythm of help we provide in the developers'
Zulip livechat -- including why we prefer to give you help in public
mailing lists and Zulip streams, instead of in one-on-one private
messages or email. We prefer to hear from you and respond to you in
public places so more people have a chance to answer the question, and
to see and benefit from the answer. [More about that in this blog
post.](https://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2016/10/12/0)
This structure saves time answering common questions while still
providing everyone the personal help they need, and maintains balance
between stream discussion and documentation. Becoming familiar and
comfortable with this rhythm will be helpful to you as you interact
with other developers on
[chat.zulip.org](https://zulip.com/developer-community). It is always
better (and Zulip’s strong preference) to ask questions and have
conversation through a public stream rather than a private message or
an email. This benefits you by giving you faster response times and
the benefit of many minds, as well as benefiting the community as
other contributors learn from reading the conversation.
- Stick to the [community norms](https://zulip.com/developer-community/).
- Read these three blog posts
- [Try, Then Ask](https://www.mattringel.com/2013/09/30/you-must-try-and-then-you-must-ask/)
- [We Aren’t Just Making Code, We’re Making History](https://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2016/10/12/0)
- [How to Ask Good Questions](https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/)
- Understand [what makes a great Zulip contributor](../overview/contributing.html#what-makes-a-great-zulip-contributor)
This is a typical question/response sequence:
1. You [try to solve your problem until you get stuck, including
looking through our code and our documentation, then start
formulating your request for
help](https://www.mattringel.com/2013/09/30/you-must-try-and-then-you-must-ask/).
1. You ask your question.
1. Someone directs you to a document.
1. You go read the document to find the answer to your question.
1. You find you are confused about a new thing.
1. You ask another question.
1. Having demonstrated your the ability to read,
think, and learn new things, someone will have a longer talk with
you to answer your new, specific question.
1. You and the other person collaborate to improve the document you
read in step 3. :-)
As a final note on asking for help, please make use of [Zulip's
Markdown](https://zulip.com/help/format-your-message-using-markdown)
when posting questions; code blocks are nicer for reading terminal
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
@@ -170,21 +192,19 @@ 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) in
[the Zulip development community server][development-community],
[#GSoC](https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/14-GSoC) on [the Zulip
development community server](https://zulip.com/developer-community/),
(compose a new stream message with your name as the topic).
Zulip operates under group mentorship. That means you should
generally post in public streams in
[the Zulip development community][development-community], not send private
messages, for assistance. Our preferred approach is to just post in
an appropriate public stream in
[the Zulip development community][development-community] 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.
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
@@ -198,11 +218,9 @@ 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][development-community]
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 public streams in
[the Zulip development community][development-community],
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
@@ -587,13 +605,12 @@ 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.
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 [the Zulip development community][development-community].
[development-community]: https://zulip.com/developer-community/
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).
Rough is fine! The ideal first draft to get feedback from the
community on should include primarily (1) links to your contributions