On Tuesday, 9 April 2013 at 16:32:51 UTC, Brad Roberts wrote:
> In what way would this differ from the normal every day experience of "hey, I'm going to work on X, could I ask for some help with the design of it?"

You are somewhat guaranteed to have a person you can ask for help and expect at least some answer if you are accepted. Totally different from usual workflow.

It is only different in that it is official, and there is a deadline.
It's good PR. When you hear "D summer of code" project you know there is at
least one person working hard on the project and that they definitely have
a mentor.

It would be on record that you were involved in DSoC 2013.

:) plus a group would get to approve or disapprove projects.

If you don't complete your project it is a lot worse than if it were just an idea mentioned on a forum somewhere.

There really is something to it being official and having a deadline though.
 On 9 Apr 2013 18:33, "Brad Roberts" <braddr@puremagic.com> wrote:

> On 4/9/13 12:10 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
>
>> On 4/8/2013 11:42 PM, Rory McGuire wrote:
>>
>>> Could we not still run the basics of the program minus the funding?
>>> Perhaps
>>> there are still students and mentors that would be interested
>>> in contributing their time for their name down in the history of D. :)
>>>
>>> We could call it DSoC. There would still be an approval process that way
>>> everyone knows what is expected and there is still the experience
>>> and record of that experience for potential employers to refer to so that
>>> candidates can use the experience for reference.
>>>
>>> The D community is stable so I really think this could work (as
>>> opposed to a
>>> unstable community where references would mean nothing).
>>> I would be interested in DSoC more than GSoC because I work full-time and
>>> wouldn't be able to put in a full summer of time.
>>>
>>
>> Very interesting idea!
>>
>
> In what way would this differ from the normal every day experience of "hey, I'm going to work on X, could I ask for some help with the design of it?"
>

On Tuesday, 9 April 2013 at 08:00:04 UTC, Timothee Cour wrote:
> I'm still willing to mentor, whether under G or D Soc!
>

We are 2

On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 20:13:39 +0200
Rory McGuire <rjmcguire@gmail.com> wrote:

> It is only different in that it is official, and there is a deadline. It's good PR. When you hear "D summer of code" project you know there is at least one person working hard on the project and that they definitely have a mentor.
> 
> It would be on record that you were involved in DSoC 2013.
> 
> :) plus a group would get to approve or disapprove projects.
> 
> If you don't complete your project it is a lot worse than if it were just an idea mentioned on a forum somewhere.
> 
> There really is something to it being official and having a deadline though.

Plus, as someone already alluded to, it wouldn't necessarily have to exclude people, as GSoC intentionally does, just because they went with a non-traditional non-one-size-fits-all education route.