The one fault you CANNOT make

[Marcus D. Hanwell]

Ian Monroe wrote:
> On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 1:56 PM, Riccardo Iaconelli <riccardo at kde.org> wrote:
>   
>> On 5/15/08, Thiago Macieira <thiago at kde.org> wrote:
>>     
>> What should be our arguments to take a decision for using one (IRC) or the
>> other (ML)?
>>     
>
> Personally I think even constant contact on IRC doesn't replace a
> thoughtful weekly status report over email. Making sure you don't get
> bogged down in something is the main goal of the mentor, and a summary
> of your work is the best way to figure that out.
>
> However Thiago's main goal is to make sure people stay in contact in some form.
>   
I am a mentor this year, student last. I personally was in contact with 
my mentor and others in the project over IRC quite frequently but always 
made the time to email him once a week. This helped us both see how I 
was doing, it was great for me to reflect on the past week and a 
motivating factor at times when I knew I had to send a mail out the 
following week detailing my progress.

I would recommend IRC contact but don't think it replaces a regular 
written update. Of course everyone is different and what works for one 
may not work for all.

Thanks,

Marcus