John Cliff wrote:
I think we should be careful not to underexpect of SOC students, This is meant to be a full time summer job essentially. Last year some of the projects completed for other groups were pretty darn big and complicated, Blender got a new rigging system for instance. Dont get me wrong, the guys did a great job last year but we really shouldnt limit them with preconceptions.
Right now we need to give ideas that are defined enough to grab their attention and confidence. Should there be something on the Home Page to attract students, like a big headline "Summer of Code Is On!" then link to the wiki page of ideas.
Having taught a bunch of college courses I can say there are some great minds out there with tons of energy. But at age 20 or so, most still need (and want!) some structure - it seems to work best when they start with something they can get their hands around, gain quick confidence, and then expand upon.
We might also want to set and try to enforce some crystal clear expectations (ie post code, update project status wiki every 2 wks or whatever - remember they have the energy to meet these kinds of rules), then offer them lots of helpful encouragement and feedback, but also giving them lots of space to accomplish creative things. A few don't need any guidance but most need some. While most of Inkscape's projects last year went great, it seemed the one less successful project did not engage in that agile, release early/often mode to gain more helpful feedback. The other projects seemed to have some stuff running in the first few weeks.