Google Summer of Code

[Cheryl Colan]

The tech/coder guys from Engage Media that I met at Transmission Asia-Pacific suggested the Show in a Box project apply to be a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code in order to get some of our plugins/features coded. We'd have to apply for 2009, since 2008 SoC kicked off in May. I talked about this a little bit with Jen after she twittered about learning jQuery from a 12-year-old via YouTube video.

Anyway, I made a wiki page for us and populated it with links to more info about Google Summer of Code and becoming a mentoring organization. If we want to pursue it we can read up and then figure out how to handle the application. If the process follows this year, we'll need to be ready to apply by early March.

We don't have to do it. But I wanted a place to put my research, because it's an interesting possibility. Interested to know what you all think.

Cheryl

[Cheryl Colan]

I'm pretty sleepy. Here's the link. http://showinabox.pbwiki.com/google-summer-of-code

Duh.

[Jay dedman]

> Anyway, I made a wiki page for us and populated it with links to more info
> about Google Summer of Code and becoming a mentoring organization. If we
> want to pursue it we can read up and then figure out how to handle the
> application. If the process follows this year, we'll need to be ready to
> apply by early March.

I think this is a good idea: http://showinabox.pbwiki.com/google-summer-of-code
we dont need a lot of coding...but we do need some coding done.

ill read the links.
if someone wanted to work on this with me, i say we take it on.

Jay

--
http://jaydedman.com
917 371 6790

[Michael Verdi]

I think it's a good idea and I also think it's really far away. We
need solutions between now and then and like I've said to Jay and Jen,
I think some of us are going to have to add some javascript, php and
mysql skills to our toolbox. That sounds kind of difficult to me but
maybe it's not as bad as I'm thinking. After all, before videoblogging
I knew nothing of wordpress, plugins and css - all of my web skills
were rooted in 1998.

--
http://graymattergravy.com

[markus sandy]

On Jul 27, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Michael Verdi wrote:

> I think it's a good idea and I also think it's really far away.

hi all,

I had an observer role in a Drupal SOC 2007. successful SOC's take a
lot amount of prep, whizz by surprisingly fast and are generally very
time demanding of all involved (often more for the organizers than for
the students). check out

http://groups.drupal.org/soc-2008

to see how they do it. Compare with creative commons, which has been
much more low key in their approach (and far less successful in the
number of completed projects over the past three years):

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Summer_of_Code_2008

markus

[Cheryl Colan]

I hear that, Verdi. But I am really hesitant to add these skills to my own toolbox, especially in support of WordPress. The constant upgrades are driving me crazy.

It's not about difficulty of completing the upgrades - though I don't trust the automatic upgrade much as it's screwed up two of my sites and I'm just LUCKY I had backups to revert to so that I could upgrade manually. It's that I manage a lot of sites, add more frequently, and having to update and test all of them on a monthly basis, and then research and fix whatever the WordPress theme breaks in terms of plugins and themes. This task alone is getting to be a monstrous drain on my time.

I can only imagine how much worse this is for developers who are conscientious about supporting their work and helping their users.

Nightmare. I can't go there, especially not as an unpaid volunteer.

I'm feeling particularly discouraged. I'd like to make a bigger contribution than I have up to now, but it seems an overwhelming and hopeless project.

As Markus noted, SoC can be super time-consuming for all involved. The way this summer has gone, I don't know that I could make the time - and SoC is not necessarily a great solution for us. And it IS too far off.

I know one thing. I'm redesigning my own site in the next month, and I won't be using any Show in a Box plugins. But I'll share whatever different solutions I come up with, so it will still be Show in a Box.

Cheryl