SoC 2008

Planet-SoC will be aggregating content from SoC contributers all over the world in a centralized location. Screencast demonstrations, articles, commits, you name it!

Are you a Drupal designer interested in getting some exposure?

Planet-SoC is looking for a unique theme to make Drupal stand out!

If you think you can help us with a design, please leave a comment or contact me or Alex UA!

I saw this awesome promotional video about why students should take part in the Google Summer of Code. If you're a student and you're wondering whether or not to take part in this program or a mentor trying to convince a student to sign up, give this video a look.

http://csdl.ics.hawaii.edu/~johnson/screencasts/GSoC2009.mov

In the conversation that started the planning for the Google Summer of Code 2009 webchick presented what she saw as the biggest challenge the Drupal community faces:

IMO our challenge is not "how do we get these students to continue slaving away on their projects after they're not getting paid anymore" (I realize this isn't what you said, but I've heard other people say this if you 'read between the lines'), our challenge is instead, "how do we get our students to become Drupal-obsessed and immersed in the community as a contributor?" If we figure out the answer to that question, awesome code will follow.

Obviously, this challenge is also an opportunity, because for every person who we never hear from again (or for every dozen) we get a webchick that emerges to become a leader in, or at least a long-time member of, the community. It may be hard to keep people engaged, but the simple fact is that we already largely have their attention. We simply need to find more efficient and sustainable ways of making the contact more valuable to the participants, and make the memories more endearing/enduring.

The "HOWTO" and "General Requirements" documents have been posted on the group page for Google Summer of Code 2009.

There are a number of proposals from last year that either didn't make the cut or, in a couple of rare cases, didn't result in a successful project. Are there proposals from the GSoC 2008 group that worth bringing over the GSoC 2009 group? I'm going to put some work in organizing the group, and I was thinking it might be a good way to populate the idea section with some content.

Here's the list from last year: http://drupal.org/google-summer-of-code/2008/ideas-list

Here's a description of the various roles that need filling during SoC, what needs to be done, and a place for people to sign themselves up for it. Please feel free to sign yourself up for multiple roles, but please don't try and do all of them or you'll end up as insane as webchick. ;)

Let's rock this!

People we need ASAP
* Organization Administrators
* Mentor Recruiters
* Official Project Idea List Curators
* Project Idea Thinker Uppers

People we need before we submit a mentoring application (~Late Feb - Early March)
* Mentoring Application Writers
* Mentors
* Backup Mentors

People we need before student applications start coming in (~Late March - Mid-April)
* Welcome Wagon
* Student Application Vetters
* Student Application Rankers

People we need before community bonding period (~Mid-April - Late May)
* Community Bonding Time Team
* Planet SoC

People we need during Summer of Code starts (~Late May - Early September)
* Whip Crackers

People we need before SoC ends (Early September and beyond)
* Post-SoC Team

While Google hasn't officially announced anything to my knowledge, word on the street is that the Summer of Code program will be running again in 2009. If it runs as it did in 2008, then it would be publicly announced next month, and applications from mentoring organizations (that's us - Drupal) to participate will be due the first week of March (just in time for everyone to be distracted by Drupalcon! ;)).

Traditionally, I've sort of headed up the administrative, getting-the-ball-rolling process at the beginning of SoC, and making-sure-things-are-chugging-along during the middle, with the help of Drupal's tremendous mentoring team. There is one BIG snag this year though -- last fall I got named Drupal 7 core maintainer, and have had to cut all other "extra-curricular" duties, and that includes SoC. :\ We therefore urgently need to look at a sustainable way to spread this responsibility across the mentoring team so it doesn't create a "single point of failure" in our organization.

So let's pre-preemptively start talking strategy about how to tackle managing SoC moving forward. Here's a brain-dump of everything related to managing SoC that will need to be looked after, preferably by a team of former mentors, students, and ardent summer of code fans.

Want to help? Sign yourself up!

Its official:
http://groups.google.com/group/google-summer-of-code-discuss/browse_thre...

But there's a reduction in number of students, i think we should get on early... After last year's success, I'm mentoring again -- point me to the sign-up page! :D

Hi SoCer's,

You can grab the videocast of the Szeged SOC presentation over at http://www.archive.org/details/soc_showcase. It's available in streaming and full formats.

Also, our Google code project page (For code submissions) is live: http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code-2008-drupal/

Needless to say, our projects pwned.

Please read the details at the page http://groups.google.com/group/google-summer-of-code-announce/web/how-to.... It has been updated recently for SOC 2008.

Hi, I wanted to point you guys to a demonstration of color.module I am working on.

http://www.skiquel.com/lab/drupal-6/ - You should be able to get to try it as 'user' and 'admin', and play around with the scheme functionality.

For those who missed the announcement on the SoC mailing list, Final Evaluation Period is now upon us. There are two required surveys: one for your assigned SoC project, and one for the program as a whole.

Please turn these in no later than Sunday, August 24!

Students: In addition to your program surveys, you must also Upload a copy of your code to Google. We hope you will continue to work on your projects even after SoC. :)

Mentors: Only the primary mentor listed @ http://code.google.com/soc/2008/drupal/open.html will be able to fill out a student evaluation. But feel free to collaborate with it with your co-mentors!

Thanks so much for a rockin' SoC, folks! :)

Validation API has had a week in beta. However with a lack of any issues being submitted, I think I needed to advertise this a little harder (or, maybe the module is perfect the way it is :)). Hence, the reason I am posting this discussion in the group. There is a couple tutorials in the README.txt, and the help system was revamped last week. Feel free the take the module through the cleaners, just leave an issue if it doesn't handle your treatment too well. :)

http://drupal.org/project/validation_api

Get it while it's hot! I released Alpha5 of Memetracker this afternoon before I leave tonight on the first leg of my long vacation leading up to Drupalcon.

Highlights of the release included a new compact UI for the memebrowsing page that hides/unhides related content in each meme. Also, I've reworked the meme detection process which should make it more accurate for sites with multiple memetrackers.

Great news! The Summer of Code Showcase session was accepted for Drupalcon Szeged! It will take place at 9am - 10:30am on August 29th, and will be a panel where as many people as we can fit at the front of the room will spend 5 minutes per project demonstrating the hard work done over SoC so audience members can see it first-hand.

I have a list below of all 19 projects. If you're either a SoC student or mentor coming to Szeged, please sign your name up next to your project. Myself and snufkin will take any of the stragglers. :)

My project is going great and is nearly complete, but one concern I have is the user interface. I am looking for ways to improve it. My project allows widgets to be created from Drupal content such as nodes, blocks, or views. Content must first be added as a "widget source" before it can be embedded in a widget. Widgets can be embedded in various formats such as IFrames and Google Gadgets, with more to come.

I have implemented the following features while editing a widget:
-Dynamic user interface using AHAH.
-Live preview of changes made to widget.

Just a reminder from the official timeline: there is one week of SoC remaining. The final week (August 11 - August 18) should be used for wrap-up tasks: final code tweaks, documentation, finishing your SimpleTests, etc.

On August 18, you'll need to roll a final release of your code which Google will then ask you to upload on their servers.

Let's rock it, folks! :)

I've proposed a session for Memetracker for the upcoming Drupalcon at Szeged.

Any votes for the session would be appreciated :)
http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions/introducing-memetracker

Awaiting suggestions before I set my own standards

Mid-term time means time to fill out your mid-term surveys. Full details available here: http://groups.google.com/group/google-summer-of-code-announce/web/midter...

Mentors: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/mentor_home.html
Students: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/student_home.html
Click the big red link.

Mentors with students assigned and SoC students MUST fill these out, or else students will not be paid. :( Mentors who are not formally assigned a student may also submit surveys if they'd like to provide their own insights and experiences.

Please get these in by Friday, July 11. Thanks a lot, folks.

Join us tonight for a code sprint on incorporating #element_validate into Validation API.

Start in #drupal and move if we need to.