[Kde-pim] Kontact Touch GSOC Project - mentor needed

[Kevin Krammer]

On Friday, 2013-04-12, Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> On Thursday 11 April 2013 23:36:38 Michael Bohlender wrote:
> > It is a bit thin on scope and implementation details.
> > 
> > > E.g. does this include folder specific settings UI, composer,
> > > attachment handling, address book integration/recipient editor,
> > > filter/search UI, etc.
> > > 
> > > Maybe list a couple of example workflows that should be possible with
> > > the improved UI.
> > 
> > I updated my proposal with a concrete mockup and ugly but hopefully
> > descriptive kolourpaint drawings.
> > It is more like a rewrite than a little update so please give it a second
> > look.
> 
> Erm... you might have misunderstood Kevin's comment. It didn't seem to me
> like he was asking for UI design details, but rather for a more detailed
> list of planned features. I agree that this is important in order to
> estimate whether your scope is realistic.

Yes, exactly :)

> > This design proposal constrains me a little as I was hoping to be able to
> > experiment with the ideas of a task driven approach that float around the
> > Plasma Active project these days. But I can see how "I will do mockups
> > and play around with UI ideas. This will be great. Trust me" is not a
> > good project proposal.
> 
> I think leaving much flexibility for the design phase of the project
> actually was a good idea. What was lacking was more details on the planned
> feature set. I don't think you have to commit yourself to a concrete
> design before the project starts, though putting your design ideas into
> the proposal may still have been a good idea, even though I see them as
> not binding at all and subject to change during the design/mockup phase
> (and later as well).

Right. It doesn't hurt to have mockups of certain ideas but this shouldn't be 
a constraint for the project at all.
The idea to use a tasked based approach is actually something that should be 
in the proposal and a list of such tasks that you expect to be able to have 
new or improved interfaces for.

> > "Would it then not be better to have someone from PA be the primary
> > mentor for this?"
> > 
> > Thomas Pfeiffer is form PA but not a developer, so he can't be a Mentor I
> > guess. The code I am intending to write will sure look a lot like what we
> > have in plasma-mobile and declarative-plasmoids. I hang around in #active
> > for some time now and feel comfortable working with the PA guys so I
> > wouldn't mind getting mentored by one of them. But having someone with
> > KDE PIM knowledge who makes you aware of possible performance problems
> > and can help with questions regarding Akonadi is also really useful.
> > 
> > Any opinion from the PA developers on this?
> 
> I thought that code reviews would have to be done by the mentor, that's why
> I thought I couldn't be your main mentor. But since Sebas said that they
> don't necessarily have to be done by the mentor, it's okay for me to be
> the official mentor, with people from the PA team and PIM team (especially
> Kevin) doing code reviews and answering technical questions.

Great, make sure you sign up as a mentor on google-melange and subscribe to 
the KDE mentor list.
http://teom.org/blog/kde/kde-accepted-for-google-summer-of-code-2013/

As Sebas said, the mentor is for one the primary contact for the student and 
should also be the person who can best judge whether the work is progressing 
well, etc.

Since the proposed work here is mainly new and/or improved UI and interaction 
patterns, I think it makes sense to have Thomas as the main mentor, with 
coders from PA and PIM assisting on any code related matters.

Cheers,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer
KDE user support, developer mentoring
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