Unfortunately we won't participate in GSoC this year. The decision was not surprising - our application has been rejected.

Sadly there are lots of things we could have done better. Our application has been a low-priority side job for Walter and myself and as such its quality has suffered greatly.

GSoC applications are a great example of things where one or more community members can have a large impact on D's well being by offloading a parallelizable work from the two of us.

Please consider taking a leadership role for GSoC 2015.


Andrei

On 27 February 2014 02:34, Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> wrote:
> Unfortunately we won't participate in GSoC this year. The decision was not surprising - our application has been rejected.
>
> Sadly there are lots of things we could have done better. Our application has been a low-priority side job for Walter and myself and as such its quality has suffered greatly.
>
> GSoC applications are a great example of things where one or more community members can have a large impact on D's well being by offloading a parallelizable work from the two of us.
>
> Please consider taking a leadership role for GSoC 2015.
>

I was just wondering what was happening and assumed that this was the case last night.  Thanks for confirming.

Regards
Iain

On Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 02:34:53 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Unfortunately we won't participate in GSoC this year. The decision was not surprising - our application has been rejected.
>
> Sadly there are lots of things we could have done better. Our application has been a low-priority side job for Walter and myself and as such its quality has suffered greatly.
>
> GSoC applications are a great example of things where one or more community members can have a large impact on D's well being by offloading a parallelizable work from the two of us.
>
> Please consider taking a leadership role for GSoC 2015.
>
>
> Andrei

How much time did you spend on the application this year?  How much time do you think would be needed to put together a good quality proposal?

On 2/27/14, 10:10 AM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
> On Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 02:34:53 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> Unfortunately we won't participate in GSoC this year. The decision was
>> not surprising - our application has been rejected.
>>
>> Sadly there are lots of things we could have done better. Our
>> application has been a low-priority side job for Walter and myself and
>> as such its quality has suffered greatly.
>>
>> GSoC applications are a great example of things where one or more
>> community members can have a large impact on D's well being by
>> offloading a parallelizable work from the two of us.
>>
>> Please consider taking a leadership role for GSoC 2015.
>>
>>
>> Andrei
>
> How much time did you spend on the application this year?  How much time
> do you think would be needed to put together a good quality proposal?

Walter and I pleaded that the other completes the application, with me saying I don't have the time and him saying he's not suited for the job. In the end I "won" and he spent a couple of hours drafting a proposal, which was indeed bad. I spent maybe an hour a late evening trying to improve the proposal and that was about it. Made no page on dlang.org and did nothing on the wiki ideas page (which I think was weak as well).

But sheer time spent is not essential here as the availability of mental cycles. When I do something right I think of it in small quanta all the time - showering, walking, running, whatever. So by the time I sit down to work on it I have ideas and plans already formed. The GSoC was the exact opposite - unprepared "todo" work vying for attention at the periphery of an already overflowing plate. There's no way I could have done a good job at it.

For better or worse Walter and I are the bottlenecks on a lot of D-related stuff. (Just look at http://goo.gl/jGYzir which is developing a nice tenure as a tab in my web browser.) Kenji wrote me an email months ago asking for my take on DIP49, and has done a lot of legwork before I came back to him saying we need a radical simplification. No wonder he wouldn't answer my emails. Whenever anything comes, I need to act "managerial" - absorb context quickly, make a decision, delegate details, move on.

There's just too much important AND urgent stuff going on right now in D, which gives a whole other perspective on the people who advise us on how to do things better, to dissolve into the shrubs when a very concrete opportunity to do something. From that angle, every single little thing that's "parallelizable" and off our plate (such as build system, auto tester, release management, GSoC, and such) is a double improvement for the language as a whole: once because that part gets done better, and twice because it frees us to better focus on other things. Concretely: there wasn't much time to work on allocators lately...


Thanks,

Andrei

On Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 18:47:37 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 2/27/14, 10:10 AM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
>> On Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 02:34:53 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> Unfortunately we won't participate in GSoC this year. The decision was
>>> not surprising - our application has been rejected.
>>>
>>> Sadly there are lots of things we could have done better. Our
>>> application has been a low-priority side job for Walter and myself and
>>> as such its quality has suffered greatly.
>>>
>>> GSoC applications are a great example of things where one or more
>>> community members can have a large impact on D's well being by
>>> offloading a parallelizable work from the two of us.
>>>
>>> Please consider taking a leadership role for GSoC 2015.
>>>
>>>
>>> Andrei
>>
>> How much time did you spend on the application this year?  How much time
>> do you think would be needed to put together a good quality proposal?
>
> Walter and I pleaded that the other completes the application, with me saying I don't have the time and him saying he's not suited for the job. In the end I "won" and he spent a couple of hours drafting a proposal, which was indeed bad. I spent maybe an hour a late evening trying to improve the proposal and that was about it. Made no page on dlang.org and did nothing on the wiki ideas page (which I think was weak as well).
>
> But sheer time spent is not essential here as the availability of mental cycles. When I do something right I think of it in small quanta all the time - showering, walking, running, whatever. So by the time I sit down to work on it I have ideas and plans already formed. The GSoC was the exact opposite - unprepared "todo" work vying for attention at the periphery of an already overflowing plate. There's no way I could have done a good job at it.
>
> For better or worse Walter and I are the bottlenecks on a lot of D-related stuff. (Just look at http://goo.gl/jGYzir which is developing a nice tenure as a tab in my web browser.) Kenji wrote me an email months ago asking for my take on DIP49, and has done a lot of legwork before I came back to him saying we need a radical simplification. No wonder he wouldn't answer my emails. Whenever anything comes, I need to act "managerial" - absorb context quickly, make a decision, delegate details, move on.
>
> There's just too much important AND urgent stuff going on right now in D, which gives a whole other perspective on the people who advise us on how to do things better, to dissolve into the shrubs when a very concrete opportunity to do something. From that angle, every single little thing that's "parallelizable" and off our plate (such as build system, auto tester, release management, GSoC, and such) is a double improvement for the language as a whole: once because that part gets done better, and twice because it frees us to better focus on other things. Concretely: there wasn't much time to work on allocators lately...
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andrei

One more question. Do you feel this is a job that someone who isn't necessarily well versed in the various technologies could take on (in a sort of manager role), or would you need someone who has the expertise to evaluate various proposals.

On 2/27/14, 11:11 AM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
> One more question. Do you feel this is a job that someone who isn't
> necessarily well versed in the various technologies could take on (in a
> sort of manager role), or would you need someone who has the expertise
> to evaluate various proposals.

Any motivated individual with little to moderate expertise can do it. The application is for the most part filling forms and creating prose. A person who's on top of things can prod contributors into submitting ideas, rally mentors, make sure the related web pages are in good shape, etc. etc. etc. To put things into perspective, we could have missed the deadline if the thing didn't bubble up to my level of consciousness.

Andrei

On Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 21:37:03 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 2/27/14, 11:11 AM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
>> One more question. Do you feel this is a job that someone who isn't
>> necessarily well versed in the various technologies could take on (in a
>> sort of manager role), or would you need someone who has the expertise
>> to evaluate various proposals.
>
> Any motivated individual with little to moderate expertise can do it. The application is for the most part filling forms and creating prose. A person who's on top of things can prod contributors into submitting ideas, rally mentors, make sure the related web pages are in good shape, etc. etc. etc. To put things into perspective, we could have missed the deadline if the thing didn't bubble up to my level of consciousness.
>
> Andrei

In that case, as Yoda would say:

Volunteer to prepare GSoC 2015 proposal I shall.

Do you have copies of past submissions as a guideline, or is it just what is on the Wiki.

On 2/27/14, 1:42 PM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
> On Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 21:37:03 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 2/27/14, 11:11 AM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
>>> One more question. Do you feel this is a job that someone who isn't
>>> necessarily well versed in the various technologies could take on (in a
>>> sort of manager role), or would you need someone who has the expertise
>>> to evaluate various proposals.
>>
>> Any motivated individual with little to moderate expertise can do it.
>> The application is for the most part filling forms and creating prose.
>> A person who's on top of things can prod contributors into submitting
>> ideas, rally mentors, make sure the related web pages are in good
>> shape, etc. etc. etc. To put things into perspective, we could have
>> missed the deadline if the thing didn't bubble up to my level of
>> consciousness.
>>
>> Andrei
>
> In that case, as Yoda would say:
>
> Volunteer to prepare GSoC 2015 proposal I shall.
>
> Do you have copies of past submissions as a guideline, or is it just
> what is on the Wiki.

Congratulations and good luck! Stay tuned to the general GSoC process and I hope you'll be around in December :o).

Google doesn't save past submissions. We have our older gsoc pages on dlang.org and the wiki. I think Walter saved some form data.


Andrei

On Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 21:59:37 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 2/27/14, 1:42 PM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
>> On Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 21:37:03 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> On 2/27/14, 11:11 AM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
>>>> One more question. Do you feel this is a job that someone who isn't
>>>> necessarily well versed in the various technologies could take on (in a
>>>> sort of manager role), or would you need someone who has the expertise
>>>> to evaluate various proposals.
>>>
>>> Any motivated individual with little to moderate expertise can do it.
>>> The application is for the most part filling forms and creating prose.
>>> A person who's on top of things can prod contributors into submitting
>>> ideas, rally mentors, make sure the related web pages are in good
>>> shape, etc. etc. etc. To put things into perspective, we could have
>>> missed the deadline if the thing didn't bubble up to my level of
>>> consciousness.
>>>
>>> Andrei
>>
>> In that case, as Yoda would say:
>>
>> Volunteer to prepare GSoC 2015 proposal I shall.
>>
>> Do you have copies of past submissions as a guideline, or is it just
>> what is on the Wiki.
>
> Congratulations and good luck! Stay tuned to the general GSoC process and I hope you'll be around in December :o).
>
> Google doesn't save past submissions. We have our older gsoc pages on dlang.org and the wiki. I think Walter saved some form data.
>
>
> Andrei

I will try to keep an eye on what the successful projects do this summer, that may give me so ideas.

On 2/27/14, 2:03 PM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
> On Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 21:59:37 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 2/27/14, 1:42 PM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
>>>
>>> In that case, as Yoda would say:
>>>
>>> Volunteer to prepare GSoC 2015 proposal I shall.
>>>
>>> Do you have copies of past submissions as a guideline, or is it just
>>> what is on the Wiki.
>>
>> Congratulations and good luck! Stay tuned to the general GSoC process
>> and I hope you'll be around in December :o).
>>
>> Google doesn't save past submissions. We have our older gsoc pages on
>> dlang.org and the wiki. I think Walter saved some form data.
>>
>>
>> Andrei
>
> I will try to keep an eye on what the successful projects do this
> summer, that may give me so ideas.

Also, keep in mind that GSoC is pretty much two things:

1) a nice little pay check for students
2) a bit of structure around getting work done

We can still do #2 without #1.  And we don't need google to make it happen.  How about trying a practice run despite not having google tossing in the funding?