Diaspora at RailsGirls Summer of Code
As proposed in the mailing list, I move the subject here to loom.io
You guys might know the RailsGirls initiative, which aims to teach girls Ruby and Rails.
Well, RailsGirls is starting a new project called RailsGirls Summer of Code, which aims to bring the students into open source projects.
We are looking for open source projects (something with Ruby and Rails), a mentor per project (who really knows his/ her way around the project/ code base) and a coach who helps the student with this goals. It is compareable to Google Summer of Code, but with beginners instead.
If my description is a little too confusing, check out our website http://bit.ly/rgsoc) and the projects list on github (https://github.com/RailsGirlsBerlin/summer-of-code/wiki/Project-ideas).
Just to drop some names of projects that will work with us: Sinatra, Rubinius and still to be confirmed Rails and Puma. But we just started, so bear with us ;)
The schedule is flexible but the "summer" would be from July to September, 3 months during which the students will get paid. Student application will open some time in May.
Anyway, one of the initiators approached me concerning Diaspora. It would be cool to have Diaspora listed on the projects page, especially because its concept is easily grasped (social network vs Ruby implementation, if you know what I mean ;)) and suited for a beginner with some help from the coach.
Plus, it could bring some attention to Diaspora itself :D
If you think if Diaspora is suited and if you have someone in mind as a mentor or maybe a coach, you can apply via the forms on the website (http://bit.ly/rgsoc).
As for possible goals, Raven already proposed the following:
* (REST) API
* separation of federation into a layer
* "seed migration" - moving your account to another server
* more useful admin backend
* ...
- writing/updating documentation
- making how-to videos
- ...
goob Sat 27 Apr 2013 5:13PM
This sounds like a fantastic initiative to me, and I'm delighted that you want to work on Diaspora as part of the project. I'm afraid I am a complete dunce when it comes to code so I can't help you get this off the ground, but I'd love to support it in any way I can (more on the documentation side, I imagine).
Sean Tilley Sun 28 Apr 2013 7:36PM
Oh wow, this would be really neat!
While I do think that these are all really interesting proposals for things to do, I feel that the codebase is a bit complex to introduce to beginning coders. Things like working on the federation layer and seed migration are wonderful things to work on, but I imagine they'll be relatively complex pieces to put together.
I think a resource that would be of great use to you would be @jasonrobinson , who runs an Eliademy course on developing for Diaspora. I think there's a lot to be learned behind the fundamentals of how project members work together, and how our project delegates decisions and functions.
I'm sure there might also be a few devs here who wouldn't mind getting some helping hands, so maybe we could come up of a list of things to hack on that wouldn't be too hard for newcomers, but would be something we could really use. :)
Lisa P Mon 29 Apr 2013 9:28AM
Great! So I think it would be easiest to set up a list with hacks as @seantilleycommunit mentioned. Some easy and helpful tasks that I can forward to the RG Summer of Code Project list.
goob Mon 29 Apr 2013 2:05PM
It might be worth also looking at the list of issues in Github marked as suitable for newcomers: https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues?labels=newcomer&page=1&state=open
As Sean says, best to co-ordinate with the existing devs such as @jonnehass and @florianstaudacher who are involved in managing the development at the moment.
Bes wishes, and hope you and your students are able to find a way to contribute to the project.
Sean Tilley Mon 29 Apr 2013 7:16PM
I'd be more than happy to help put together a good list for beginners, too. :)
Jason Robinson Fri 3 May 2013 7:04AM
Awesome initiative - would be great to have Diaspora* listed there. So has anyone added Diaspora* already or should we first agree on ground rules how to do the mentoring?
I can go through with the person the material I have made for the Eliademy course, maybe she could just enrol to the course and can have a few chat sessions to discuss things. I'll be exporting the material so far soon, Eliademy unfortunately is not designed to allow anonymous access to course content, but I will export stuff as we go.
Who would be the actual code mentors? Or can we just give a list of X people and X resources (IRC, etc)? One named main person would be best I think for the individual.
And as for tasks, definitely nothing as complex as federation etc. We already have newcomer tasks to start from and then maybe one bigger task like post editing, featured posts, photo albums, etc. Something interesting enough for the person to be occupied. Fixing small issues the whole time is not fun :)
Lisa P Tue 7 May 2013 1:28PM
Great suggestions @jasonrobinson!
Federation is maybe a little too advanced, but photo albums and featured posts would work fine. Just like writing documentation or guides or how to videos.
Just to clarify some things. There is one mentor per project to organize the tasks. The (multiple) coaches will each be assigned to a student who (ideally) lives near the coach so they can meet in person.
I'd like to name a mentor and a few coaches and goals by the end of the week. Is that doable?
Jason Robinson Tue 7 May 2013 2:55PM
If we get a volunteer mentor and coaches - hands up people? Unfortunately myself I cannot guarantee the time required :(
As for actual goals, we could list some tasks here and pick a few. This pretty much lists the features requested: https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues?labels=feature&page=1&state=open
Some (IMHO) good ones:
- Include gravatar option for users to display their pics. (https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues/3203)
- No way to delete a message from a conversation (https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues/3867)
- Picture's albums (https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues/3904)
- Render teaser for first URL contained in posting (https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues/3361)
But yeah lots to choose from.
Florian Staudacher Tue 7 May 2013 4:01PM
I guess I should know enough about most of the code to do some mentoring ;)
Flaburgan · Sat 27 Apr 2013 2:43PM
Great idea, i'm all in!