[LLVMdev] [llvm][gsoc] Where we at?

[Duncan Sands]

Hi Tanya,

> Not having contributed to LLVM before will **not** disqualify you. 
> However, prior LLVM contributions and experience is is taken into 
> consideration when selecting and ranking applications. Mentors may also 
> take it into consideration when selecting which students they would like 
> to mentor. The application asks you to include this information.

maybe I expressed myself unclearly.  I wasn't saying that students
should have contributed to LLVM in the past, but that we are asking
applicants to prove themselves by making at least some improvement
to LLVM before we'll choose them for a GSoC position.  So it is
perfectly fine if someone turns up who we've never seen before, but
then we want them to do something useful (perhaps very minor) to show
that they are capable of making a contribution.  As you may recall
we've had a high failure rate for GSoC projects in the past.  Anton
pointed out last year that several projects had found an effective way
of increasing the success rate: requiring students to fix something,
anything, if they wanted to be accepted.  I thought we had agreed on
this last year?  I don't think it's unreasonable to want to see a
patch from prospective students.  If they are the kind of person we
are looking for then doing so should be child's play for them.  And
if fixing some small problem of their choice is too hard for them,
then they are never going to succeed with a GSoC project.

Ciao,

Duncan.