A lot of the advanced ideas are important enough that if we found
someone willing and actually able to do them, then we should make an
effort to actually find someone who could mentor them. Particularly
the ideas relating to the polys like CAD, better Groebner bases, etc.

Just glancing at the page, I would be willing to mentor most of the
non-physics projects, and would probably re-add them if you did this.
The main exception is the SymEngine projects. Let's see if any of the
existing SymEngine mentors are willing to mentor on those projects.
Otherwise let's remove them. We should also probably remove the
LFortran projects as I think Ondřej generally mentors projects for
LFortran from another mentoring org.

I went ahead and deleted the SymPy Live and SymPy Gamma ideas. SymPy
Live is already redone with pyodide, SymPy Gamma still exists but
ought to be shut down, and interactive examples is something that
other projects are working on, and we can adopt once they have
something usable.

Maybe the "solvers" idea should be rewritten, but it's definitely an
important thing that can be worked on.

TBH, I think you could probably come up with ideas for most submodules
in SymPy, and probably find someone to mentor most of them. Quite a
few wouldn't really be that important, which is maybe why they aren't
talked about.

Of course, it all boils down to finding a good student for them as
well. I honestly think that's way more important than the actual ideas
anyway. Almost all the "low hanging fruit" has been completed over the
years, and we mostly only have the harder projects left. Should we try
to find more (relatively) easy project ideas to add to the list? Or
should we just raise our bar of who we accept and accept fewer people?
I personally don't really like the low hanging fruit ideas because
they generate a lot of low quality applications and noise, but at the
same time, we have definitely had some good people in the past who
have started with such projects.

Aaron Meurer

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 4:16 PM Oscar Benjamin
<oscar.j.benja...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm not suggesting that we ask people to update the current content of
> the ideas page. I am suggesting that we remove *everything* and then
> say that if anyone wants something to be listed then they need to add
> an up to date description along with a commitment that they will
> mentor the project this year.
>
> It doesn't matter if the old ideas are still relevant. If there is not
> a mentor right now who understands what the current state is and
> precisely what needs to be done then the project description is not
> suitable for advertising to candidates.
>
> Likewise if the idea has been on that page for 10 years with no one
> doing it then probably the description of the project is no good.
> Someone should turn it into a clearer, more useful description of a
> more realistic project. Otherwise it shouldn't be listed there.
>
> I am happy to remove everything from the GSOC ideas page but
> understand that that is what I mean: I will remove *everything* and
> then only add back one or two projects that I am personally willing to
> mentor. Anyone else who wants to commit to be a mentor can add up to
> date project ideas but otherwise if it is not clear that there is an
> available mentor then the project should not be listed.
>
> We should not roll anything over from previous years automatically in
> the way that is currently done either in terms of the list of mentors
> or the list of projects.
>
> --
> Oscar
>
> On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 at 22:40, Aaron Meurer <asmeu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >  Hi Oscar.
> >
> > I agree with all of this in principle, but my experience is that it's
> > hard to get people to help out with updating the ideas page. And even
> > if I wanted to do it all myself, I don't know enough about some of the
> > ideas (like the ones in the physics submodule) to say anything about
> > them. I will say for a lot of the ideas I do know about, they are
> > actually still relevant, the issue is just that they are very
> > difficult so no one has ever been able to do them. It is worth keeping
> > them around in case someone actually comes along who can actually
> > manage them.
> >
> > If you want to take a shot at doing this, you have my blessing. I
> > don't think it's necessary to move the current page to an "old" page
> > since the wiki already has an edit history. Maybe you can do it during
> > editing, but once it's done, we should delete the "old" page, as it's
> > just confusing otherwise. I already submitted the application with the
> > link to https://github.com/sympy/sympy/wiki/GSoC-Ideas, so whatever is
> > on that page will be "the ideas page".
> >
> > Aaron Meurer
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 12:54 PM Oscar Benjamin
> > <oscar.j.benja...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Aaron,
> > >
> > > I think we should start by removing everything from the ideas page and
> > > moving it to an "old ideas" page with a clear note indicating that
> > > some might still be relevant but others are likely not. I don't think
> > > it is good to leave things on there and just let them roll over from
> > > one year to another.
> > >
> > > Each idea should be added each year by someone who is at willing to
> > > mentor the project in that specific year. Applicants can also look at
> > > the "old ideas" if they are considering proposing something that is
> > > not listed in the main ideas page.
> > >
> > > It would be better to have a small list of good, still relevant ideas
> > > that we are confident can be mentored and that have been recently
> > > checked to see that they are not out of date. I don't think that we
> > > can get to that without first just removing everything. If anyone
> > > wants to see something on the "official" ideas page then they should
> > > add it and list their name with a clear understanding that they are
> > > willing to mentor that project this year if there is a qualified
> > > candidate for the project.
> > >
> > > Many of the names listed as potential mentors are people I have not
> > > seen for some time. I don't really expect that they would mentor a
> > > project and I also don't expect that they would remove their name from
> > > the list: we should not carry that list of "potential mentors" over
> > > from one year to another. The same considerations apply to many of the
> > > project ideas that were added a long time ago by people who are no
> > > longer around and likely have no intention of mentoring any projects
> > > or updating the ideas page.
> > >
> > > Oscar
> > >
> > > On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 at 18:49, Aaron Meurer <asmeu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > It is time again for us to apply to Google to be a GSoC mentoring org.
> > > >
> > > > I need help updating the GSoC ideas page.
> > > > https://github.com/sympy/sympy/wiki/GSoC-Ideas. If any ideas there are
> > > > already completed, please remove or update them. Also please add new
> > > > ideas, although you may want to discuss them here first if you aren't
> > > > sure about them.
> > > >
> > > > Secondly, we need to update the potential mentors page.
> > > > https://github.com/sympy/sympy/wiki/GSoC-Ideas#potential-mentors. If
> > > > you were a student in the past I encourage you to mentor. Please add
> > > > your name there if you can mentor this year. If you can't mentor but
> > > > want to help review applications, just let me know.
> > > >
> > > > If you are someone who is interested in applying to SymPy for GSoC,
> > > > start here. 
> > > > https://github.com/sympy/sympy/wiki/GSoC-Student-Instructions
> > > >
> > > > Aaron Meurer
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google 
> > > > Groups "sympy" group.
> > > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send 
> > > > an email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> > > > To view this discussion on the web visit 
> > > > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAKgW%3D6JObtA47p10wX6mb5W6c3p%2BqRRQY4GBLnXHKZmyNUtNGg%40mail.gmail.com.
> > >
> > > --
> > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> > > "sympy" group.
> > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> > > email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> > > To view this discussion on the web visit 
> > > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAHVvXxRcet5vmz91g0%3D33JFms2H59zbdiM0wau9ejSuvqi1vNg%40mail.gmail.com.
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> > "sympy" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> > email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> > To view this discussion on the web visit 
> > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAKgW%3D6Lrid0UFb_mXtseY_oALESjxLMCCiD8kkpevkNwpg6GDg%40mail.gmail.com.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "sympy" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAHVvXxQzW8dqW7gP5pF2gr4qkU2cGzeBfZqwzNefrXyKWEKqhA%40mail.gmail.com.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"sympy" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAKgW%3D6J4xbF2C1XNYywnfHDVV6x1RazF7vyP6D8CBpKceaq54w%40mail.gmail.com.

Reply via email to