[haiku-development] Re: I'm interested in developing a project for Haiku
- From: Alexey Burshtein <aburst02@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:48:14 +0200
Axel Dörfler wrote:
> Since this project lasts for a whole year, the mentor would need to be
> available a lot longer, though. I would suggest that you find at least
> two mentors that can alternate every few weeks.
> What are the responsibilities of the mentors exactly besides
> supervising your work?
I've prepared a document which describes exactly the mentor's and the students'
roles. The problem is that the definition was only in Hebrew, and I translated
it into English. This document is now being reviewed by the Projects'
Coordinator (Hananel Hazan) to assure my translation is correct and can be
adopted officially by the Haifa University. When he allows me to post it, I'll
send a link to this document.
In short, it's mentor's task to set the project's goal. The mentor is supposed
to guide the students in their work, supply them with professional literature
to give them prerequisite knowledge, monitor the planning and design activity,
define the minimal acceptance level, and finally accept or reject the project.
This is pretty much like what Project Managers / Project Leads are doing in
industry. The mentor is a guide and a client at the same time. Students meet
(or interact in other ways) with the mentor at weekly / bi-weekly basis and
keep him updated about the status of developing.
Usually there is only one mentor in the project, but in case of open-source
development it may change. See, it's very flexible; it's the first time Haifa
University is involved such activity, and I'm pretty sure I'm the first person
who decided to go for it.
> > The subject for the project is mentor's choice, and shall be > > discussed
> > after> > the principal agreement is set.> > This sounds very strange: how
> > can one agree on something before you > actually know what you are agreeing
> > on?> In any case, for motivation alone, it should be you to make the >
> > suggestions on what to work on. There are plenty of opportunities, but >
> > since it is such a long project, it makes sense to work on something >
> > unrelated to pretty much everything else. Like that Calendar/Organizer >
> > application you proposed, although that should really not fill a whole >
> > year.
This is why I can't settle on the task before the principal agreement is made.
You're right, the initiative should be students', but it's the mentors who
decide what they finally want and what features the project should have.
Therefore we need to get started somewhere: if the Haiku-OS Project accepts my
proposal and allows me and my partner to dive in, I'll need the mentors' names.
Then I'll contact the mentor(s) and we decide what is the exact project we'll
do. It may be my proposal for the Calendar/Organizer application (BTW, I'm not
sure it's a small task; I hope to pack it with features like syncing with
Google Calendar, import/export events in iCal format, execute scripts when
events occur, support the Hebrew and/or Arabic lunar calendars and support
meetings between a number of users - and the initial design pretty much
resembles what was proposed by Richie Nihus here
(//www.freelists.org/post/haiku-development/Im-interested-in-developing-a-project-for-Haiku,6)).
On the other hand, it may be anything else - syncing with Nokia cellular
phones, developing 3D-enabled hardware acceleration driver for ATI graphic
cards, finalizing WiFi driver, or completing any other thing the community
needs. Two limitations exist, though: 1) the amount of work is about 600 hours,
more or less, 2) the project must be approved by Hananel Hazan, the Projects'
Coordinator, prior to start. Due to the latter, probably it's a good idea to
prepare several options for the project.
> > Any organizational questions can be also directed to the project's
> > coordinator
> > (Haifa University staff member Hananel Hazan
> > (http://cs.haifa.ac.il/~hhazan01)).
> > > He is the one who'll receive monthly progress reports.
>
> That you have to write or the mentors?
That's we, the students, who write the monthly reports, but I'm sure the
mentors will be contacted by the Projects' Coordinator also. After all, he
needs to know we don't cheat him in our monthly reports. :)
If the community agrees, then let's just name the possible mentors, define
two-three possible project subjects, contact the Project Coordinator and see
where it goes from there.
Thanks,Alexey.______________________________________________________________“I
can think of no considerable reason why an individual shall wish to havea
computer in his own home”.Kenneth Olsen, Pres. of “Digital Equipments Corp.”,
1977.
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