Important Announcement

I'm at DrupalCon Paris right now, and between the amazing people, interesting sessions, and gorgeous City of Lights, I only have a few moments, but I wanted to make a quick (and exciting) announcement. The Google Summer of Code officially wrapped up last week, and the Drupal students and mentors did an amazing job this year. “How amazing?," you ask. Well, not only did all 18 of the students that worked directly with Drupal mentors successfully complete their projects, but we got an extra bonus successful student.

Students and Mentors, the summer is drawing to a close, and you know what that means: time for your final evaluations.

According to the calendar Final Evaluations are to begin on August 17th, with those evaluations due by August 24th, so the time to wrap things up is NOW!

I'll be traveling until the 24th, so please e-mail me if you have any questions.

Thanks and good luck finishing up!

Students and Mentors, this is a reminder that SoC midterms start on Monday, July 6th. Luckily, I have a week off for that week, so I'll be checking in with each and every student to make sure everyone is doing ok. Please note that students need to be fully on the path to completing their SoC project, and they need approval from the mentor in order to receive their midterm check from Google.

Please leave a comment here if you have any questions, issues, etc. and GOOD LUCK!!!

The Google Summer of Code officially begins tomorrow (Saturday, May 23rd). Many of the students are already well on their way with their projects, but there are still 7 students who have not gotten started and need to do so ASAP.

The following students need to post their wikis:
* Christopher Bradford (bradfordcp)
* Ankur Saxena (flyankur)
* Jimmy Berry (boombatower)
* Joel Kitching (linolium)
* Simon Roberts (lyricnz)
* Balazs Dianiska (snufkin)
* Jim Berry (solotandem)
* James An (JamesAn)

After you have posted your wiki, please post a link here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/21597

Thanks, and stay tuned for more info over the next few days. As always, please contact me if you have any issues or questions.

Students: As you probably noticed on the wiki template, there is a space for a "Local Mentor", as we really would like to ensure that you meet in person with someone (or some people) who are more active in the Drupal community. In order to help you locate a Local Mentor, I'm asking that each student post the place or places where they will be living during the Summer of Code. This could include your campus housing, parents house, vacation location(s), etc. but please note if you'll only be at that location during specific dates & times.

Thanks!

Welcome, accepted Summer of Code students! This post contains important information about prerequisites for starting your project. Please read it carefully.

Google has awarded Drupal 18 slots for the 2009 Google Summer of Code. This year there were many strong applications, and narrowing the field to the top 18 was not an easy task. Thanks to all the mentors who helped out with the evaluating, and congratulations to all of the students. We look forward to working with you this summer! :)

Although coding doesn't formally kick off until May 23, according to Google's program timeline, there are a few things that need to get sorted out first. If you have questions about how to do any of these things, don't be shy! :) Post to the http://groups.drupal.org/soc-2009 or ask in #drupal on irc.freenode.net, and we'll get you hooked up.

1. Create a central wiki page for your project at the SoC 2009 group. This wiki page should basically be a single location that anyone can read over the course of SoC in order to get a good sense of what your project is about, and where it is currently in terms of completion. There's a template you can copy and paste available at http://groups.drupal.org/node/21558. Add a link to your project in here

   This page should be updated when you and your mentors reach a major design decision about your project, or if your schedule and/or deliverables need to be adjusted. Use the SoC 2008 group as a tool to help you achieve your goals. Ask questions. Find people to help you test. Discuss design decisions. Post mockups. Be creative.

2. Obtain a CVS account. The code that you produce during Summer of Code will ultimately reside at cvs.drupal.org, and you need to apply for a CVS account if you don't already have one. In your application, please mention that you are a Google Summer of Code student, so that your account will get approved quickly.

   If you're new to CVS (or revision control systems in general), you might find our CVS handbook helpful, particularly the CVS introduction. Additionally, the CVS quickstart guide is handy to have around as a reference.

3. Create a "project" on drupal.org for your project (even if your delivery is an improvement to an existing module). Once you have CVS access, describe your project briefly in a README.txt and add a sub-folder for it to the contribution repository's modules/ directory, then create a "project" for it on drupal.org, following the instructions at Step-by-step: Create a CVS project. This will give you several tools at your disposal, including:
   • a central project page, which you can use to document your project and its current state.
   • an issue tracker, which you can use to break your project apart into sub-tasks and track their completion status. Using the issue tracker allows your mentors (or any other community members) to provide input on your development process.
   • the ability to create project releases, which testers can download and try out on their own Drupal installations.

   There is helpful information about working with these tools available in the Maintaining d.o projects with CVS guide. Note that issue tracker and CVS commit activity will be primary methods of evaluating projects, and we require you to create an issue every week to report . These show us that you're making progress each week, and should be titled "Milestone X" and tagged with "SoC 2009 Weekly Update".

4. Meet your mentors and discuss your project. Please investigate which means of communication your mentors prefer. Communication is a crucial element of success, and you are encouraged to use email, Skype, IRC (http://drupal.org/node/108355), the SoC 2009 group (http://groups.drupal.org/soc-2009), the devel list (http://drupal.org/mailing-lists), and any other resources that are available to make sure that the lines of communication between you and your mentor are well established and open for the duration of the summer.

   Ensure sure that any broad or project management-related changes are documented in your wiki page, and any code-related decisions/feedback is reflected in your project's issue queue, for the benefit of those who didn't have a chance to take part in your personal communication.

5. Refine the scope of your project. Discuss with your mentors whether they feel the scope of the project described in your application is realistic and clear. If there are ambiguities, try to iron them out. We're looking for clearly stated deliverables that you feel confident you can produce by the end of the summer. Update your project's wiki page with the result.
6. Plan on testing. It is a requirement for this year's Summer of Code projects to include test scripts. For most people the simpletest framework will be the best solution. See documentation at http://drupal.org/simpletest.

If you have any questions to one of the points above, your mentor will be able to help you (or ask here).

We're looking forward to working with you.

Happy Coding,

Drupal's Google Summer of Code team

Mentors and students, there are only a few short days before the applications get locked down, and there are some important items you need to know about.

Mentors
- The Drupal Summer of Code Mentors group is closing down, at least as a private group, due to the phasing out of private groups here on groups.drupal.org. There have been a lot of questions about scoring and applications in general, and these should now be brought to our private Drupal Summer of Code Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/drupal-soc .
- If you plan on mentoring, either as a primary or secondary mentor, you should post a public comment in the official application on the Summer of Code site. If you haven't signed up on the SoC site, please do so now! http://socghop.appspot.com/org/list_proposals/google/gsoc2009/drupal
- Please use the new Google Group to ask any questions you have about the program, if possible, though you can always feel free to contact me directly.
- Please be aware that on the official site notifications are not automatically sent to you, even if you're the mentor on a project. Please click the buttons at the top of each proposal where you'd like to get notified about updates.
- If you've given a negative score to students based off of missing data, please subscribe to the notifications for that proposal so you'll know if students address your concerns.

Students
- You must have a mentor officially assigned to your project by April 15th, so you should be doing everything you can to find a mentor if you don't have one already. Please be aware that this is a hard date and we have no power to push it back. If you're having a problem finding a mentor, please leave a comment here and/or try to find myself, chx, dmitrig01, or any other SoC mentor/admin/helper in the #drupal irc room.
- Please be aware that on the official site notifications are not automatically sent to you, even if you're the creator of a project idea. Please click the subscribe buttons at the top of your proposal to receive updates.

Students: if you have not yet submitted a proposal to the official Summer of Code site you must do so NOW!. According to the Summer of Code 2009 timeline the cutoff time for student submissions is 12pm (noon) PDT

It doesn't matter at this stage what shape your proposal is in, the most important thing for you to do is post your idea to the site, you can refine it, find a mentor, etc. later. If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to contact me. However, this is Google's rule, not Drupal's, so please don't ask for an extension, because we cannot give you one.

This is a very important Public Service Announcement to all students THINKING ABOUT applying to be a Summer of Code student with Drupal.

Google has asked us to have ALL proposed projects entered into their application process. This includes:

• Student Ideas
• Official Ideas
• Finished Ideas
• Ideas in Progress and
• All other ideas too