[TOS] blog post on getting students involved in open source

Joel Sherrill joel.sherrill at gmail.com
Tue Sep 13 13:24:06 UTC 2011


On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 6:26 AM, Gregory Hislop <hislopg at drexel.edu> wrote:
> Another key point of the work Mel cites is that at the expert stage, knowledge is tacit and experts do things intuitively rather than by conscious thought.  This means that for many tasks their performance declines if they think about things too much.  It also means that they may struggle if asked to explain what they are doing (e.g., by a novice).

Yes group dynamics and cliques are an issue.  And those who have worked
on a project do things without thinking if they still make sense.  RTEMS is a
20 year old project and we are stepping back to ask why we do things a certain
way.  Our processes and tool choices probably make no sense to the "young un's"

It is also why README's suck and documentation is out of date.  The people
who would know it is wrong, don't read it.  And when they do, they see what they
expect -- not what a new person or someone with a different native language will
see.

I think this is why programs like the Google Summer of Code, Code In, and
getting feedback from you folks is critical to free software projects.
 In some ways,
RTEMS is lucky in that we know that being all cross development targeting
embedded computers makes us a hard project for many newcomers to approach.
This forces us to consider how to lower the bar to newcomers.

With that said, spending a few weeks to get a student up to speed for a
development project that may last 2/3 of a term and disappear doesn't have
much pay off from the project's viewpoint.  If everything isn't timed right to
get the code reviewed, up to standards, properly tested, and merged, then
the code drops into a graveyard of submissions without active sponsors. [1]

If by working with you folks, the startup time "in semester" is minimized
and we have coordinated getting the feedback loop closed before the student(s)
go away, then it is a win/win.

Are we trying to define a set of best practices for incorporating FOSS
development activities into an academic environment?

--joel
RTEMS


[1] RTEMS has a few submissions in this category.  Nice functionality which
needed to be updated or cleaned up to get merged but the submitter is gone.
This may require special hardware to test or knowledge to even ensure you
don't break it while updating it.  Thus no core developer wants to touch it.

> Greg
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tos-bounces at teachingopensource.org [mailto:tos-bounces at teachingopensource.org] On Behalf Of Dave Neary
> Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 4:03 AM
> To: Mel Chua
> Cc: tos at teachingopensource.org
> Subject: Re: [TOS] blog post on getting students involved in open source
>
> Hi,
>
> Mel Chua wrote:
>> See
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisition -- the
>> key point the original paper makes is that you literally see the world
>> differently at different stages of mastery. It's hard to see with eyes
>> that are not our own.
>
> Interesting source! I wasn't aware of this. Know how I can get my hands
> on the original?
>
> Cheers,
> Dave.
>
> --
> Dave Neary
> GNOME Foundation member
> dneary at gnome.org
> _______________________________________________
> tos mailing list
> tos at teachingopensource.org
> http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
> _______________________________________________
> tos mailing list
> tos at teachingopensource.org
> http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
>


More information about the tos mailing list