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Mentoring Program Guide |
This is the page to help people, who got accepted in a Mentoring Program like the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) or Outreachy, during the program. It can also help those interested in applying to such a program get an idea about how it goes.
First congratulations for being accepted!
The way you will be mentored depends on a lot of different things, for example how well you are doing, who are your mentors, what your project is about, what the mentoring program (GSoC or Outreachy) requires or suggests (which can significantly change each year), how the mailing list responds to your patches, what currently happens in your country or in your mentors' countries, etc.
This document might give you an idea about how things usually go, but don't be surprised if your mentors ask for things that are a bit different than what is described here. It's also possible that things change during the mentoring program. Typically your mentors will expect that you become more autonomous.
One of the first things you might want to setup (if you haven't one already), after you have been accepted, but before the working period actually starts, (GSoC calls this the "Community Bonding" period,) is a blog.
You might want to check which blogging tools previous Outreachy interns and GSoC contributors used. Using a Git related tools is of course a good idea.
Using GitHub:
If you already have something setup using other tools though, even if it's not Git based, it's perfectly OK to use what you already have, and focus on your project right away.
Your blog should be a tool to improve communication between you and the Git community, including your mentors. Your blog is also something that can help you in your career by reflecting positively on your abilities and dedication. A good example is Matheus' GSoC blog posts:
Tip: It's better if you can decide the day for your weekly blog post as soon as you set up you blog. Then tell your mentors about that day right away, and try as much as possible to post every week on that day. This will help establish a routine, that will make things easier for both you and your mentors.
Tip: It's also better if you can prepare the content of your weekly blog post during the week as you are working on your project. This way it can also serve you as a todo list, a notebook, a list of current issues, etc.
In general posting about your GSoC on social media (like LinkedIn) is nice too. You can put links to your blog post in your social media posts, as they are usually shorter than blog posts.
You can start blogging as soon as your mentors contact you after you have been officially selected to participate in the mentoring program. It's in fact a nice idea to start blogging right after they have contacted you.
In all your posts (on your blog or social media), when you mention your mentors and when they are mentoring you as part of their job, it's nice to mention the companies they are working for too. Some mentors could mentor you in their free time, and might not want their employer mentioned though. So if you are not sure that it's part of their job, just ask them before posting. In case of Outreachy if some company sponsors your internship, it's a very good idea to mention them too.
The more these companies get good mentions in the media about your GSoC, and the more good work you deliver during it, the more likely they are to allow their employees to mentor others, or even to sponsor mentoring programs (like Outreachy internships for example), or maybe to hire or help you in the future.
Mentors should be regularly updated about your work, so they can know if you are stuck on something, what you have done, and what you are planning to work on and how.
The best way to update everyone about your work is probably to post on your blog. We understand though that you might not want to put everything you might want to say on your blog.
People on the Git mailing list might be interested to know that you published something on your blog, so that they can give you some help or feedback about your next steps or problems you are facing. So we think that you might want to email the mailing list to notify every one about each new blog post. If you don't feel like doing that, we might find an alternative solution, but letting people know is often a good idea to get help and suggestions. You can also take advantage of the notification email to ask for help or to ask questions related to issues you have.
Your mentors should be notified too that you posted something. To notify your mentors, you can either cc them when you email the mailing list, or you can send them a separate email. In a separate email you might add things that you might not want to post on your blog or to the mailing list.
We require you to update your mentors at least every week. So the best is if you can post on your blog weekly (and send the related notifications discussed above). If sometimes for some reason (like a vacation or exams or family issues) you cannot post a weekly update, then it's OK to just email your mentors, or to ask them to have a chat one way or another. Then please make sure you post on your blog the following week.
In the blog post update and your emails to your mentors and the mailing list, it is important that you cover all the following topics:
- what you have done since last update and how
- what is blocking you if anything
- what you find difficult to do or understand
- what things you think should be easier
- what you are planning to work on and how
The reason we ask for 2), 3) and 4) is that often interns or contributors don't know about things, like existing documentation, historical discussions, debugging scripts, features, tools or techniques, that could help them understand what's going on, or work in a more efficient way. If a mentor doesn't know that the intern or contributor is blocked or slowed by something or has a hard time moving forward, it's difficult for the mentor to help. So it's important for interns or contributors to reflect on the issues, blocks, inefficiencies, complex things that they are facing.
Notifying the mailing list or your mentors about a blog post, should not prevent you from emailing or contacting the mailing list or your mentor when you might want to do that at other times. In general don't be afraid of posting or contacting people early and often.
It can help to sometimes have a chat (by that we mean a real-time conversation) with your mentors. This can especially help you when you are stuck or after you have reflected a bit on the status of your work and internship, and have doubts or feelings that things aren't going as well as they could.
As we think it's best that you decide on your own the best time to update your blog and send notifications, you should then also decide when it's best to have a chat with your mentors. So, unless you prefer to plan regular chats, your mentors might not ask for a chat, and might just want you to pro-actively email them when you want a chat.
Some mentors might not be always online on a chat platform, so you might need to schedule chat discussions, and try to find a good time for everyone. You can also propose the tools and media that work best for you (instant messaging, phone call, video call, WhatsApp, Zoom, or even email ...) and your mentors will likely do their best to adapt to your preferences.
Mentors usually look at their emails several times per day on week days, so you can say for example in an email that you are free during the next 2 hours to have a chat, and that could be enough to schedule a chat to unblock you. You can also use a notification email after a blog post to schedule a chat. In general if you are not blocked and you have more than one mentor, it's better to schedule a chat a few days in advance to increase the chances that all your mentors can participate.
In general for everything specifically related to your project and internship, it's better to try to involve all of your mentors (for example by Ccing all of them in emails, and by using an instant messaging group they all belong to), though we know it's not always possible or practical when you are blocked.
It could be OK to discuss personal or technical things or anything not directly related to your project with only one of your mentors (like with anyone else). Just ask them.
If you prefer to have a completely fixed schedule from the start as you know each week well in advance when you will post on your blog and when you want to have a chat with your mentors, that can work too and you can probably set this up with them.
It's also OK to have such conversations completely over email if you prefer. We know that email is not usually considered really real-time, but we think it is, or can be, close enough compared to instant messaging chat for example. It sometimes happen on the Git mailing list that people debug together or discuss together something over email in a very real-time way (at least similar as instant messaging chat).
Such chats can sometimes help a contributor or intern (or even long timers on the project) move very fast in a short amount of time. So consider taking advantage of that.
It's also easier for mentors to help (or understand how they could help) when discussing informally using a real time or near real time communication medium, rather than blog posts or emails, so don't hesitate to ask for that even if you are not sure that they could help. And don't hesitate to ask them to use a medium you haven't already used with them, like Zoom for example to have a video chat, as sometimes it's just easier to understand something by sharing a screen.
You are also encouraged to take advantage of the whole Git community and its communication channels (https://git-scm.com/community), like the #git-devel IRC channel. Some or all of your mentors might not be on this channel or on alternative community channels you might want to use, but if you want to discuss with your mentors there, that's something they can consider.
Some mentors cannot easily let you know in advance what days and times they will be available to answer questions. They might not have a well planned schedule. They should be able to schedule things or give you time periods when they are more likely to be available though.
Anyway you should usually not wait much before asking a question. If you haven't found an answer or don't understand something after a 20 minute search on the mailing list archive, the code, the documentation and Google, it's high time to ask a question or ask to have a chat. Please try to search for 5 to 10 minutes before asking though, and please let your mentors know how you searched, so that they can perhaps help you be more efficient in searching for answers.
In general being as open as possible about everything related to your work, like what you don't know or don't understand, possible mistakes you have made and are still making, how you are searching when there is something you don't understand, which commands you are running, and even how you are feeling, helps a lot in resolving issues and moving forward.
If you plan to have a vacation or if something might prevent you from contacting your mentors, from updating them weekly, or from working on your project for some time, please let them know in advance.
We require that you store and regularly update your current work in public repos on GitLab or GitHub (or maybe Gerrit, gitolite, etc, but please discuss it with us before choosing something other than GitHub or GitLab). Usually a single repo forked from an official git.git repo maintained by Junio (like https://github.com/git/git) is enough, and you probably already have one.
It unfortunately happens that people stop working on their in progress project, either after the mentoring program is finished, or sometimes during the mentoring program, and we might want to reuse their work later. Often for example it takes a number of mentoring programs to finish a big project and you have to continue a project from where it was left by someone else.
Having everything in one, or a few, public repositories makes it easier to continue some work and also to test or contribute to it occasionally. So making your work available this way and frequently linking to your repo and the branches and commits in it you have worked on (for example from your blog posts and emails to the mailing list and your mentors), can help you get comments, code contributions, bug reports, etc, which will move your project forward.
It's a good idea to have your mentors review your patches or patch series or branches on your repo before sending them to the mailing list. It's OK though if you want to sometimes send a draft patch or patch series directly to the mailing list to get as much as possible everyone's feedback on something. You should mark them as [RFC] (request for comment) or [WIP] (work in progress) though.
A good way to have your mentors review something is to send them a link to it on your public repo. This way they can comment there and maybe make suggestions that you can easily apply. You could also directly send them your patches as emails if they are OK with it.
When you update your work after having received feedback from your
mentors or others, it's nice if instead of updating the same branch,
you could make changes, on a new branch. For example, if you are
working on git bisect you could make some initial changes on a
branch named bisect1, then, after receiving some comments on it, make
further changes on bisect2, and so on. This way your mentors and
others could check what you did using a diff, or a range-diff, between
the branches.
Before you ask your mentors to review something, even if it's in the draft or work in progress state, it's a good idea to make sure that you have put some effort in writing a good commit message for each of the commits you'd like them to review. Without a commit message (with a title and a body) explaining the purpose of your patch, it can be difficult for your mentors (or anyone actually) to tell if it makes sense.
If you know that something is missing in your patch, it's a good idea to add [WIP] or [RFC] in the title and to add comments somewhere about things that are missing, (like /* TODO: XXX */ comments in the code for example), so that your mentors know which parts of your work are not finished.
A good time to send a link to a branch you are working on to your mentors and ask them to review it, is typically when the commit message and the code look good, and when it compiles without warnings and passes existing tests, but when you haven't yet written the documentation and the new tests. You can then work on the new tests and documentation while your mentors review the code. Even then, please say that documentation and new tests are missing.
That said, it's OK to send something when a number of parts are missing, including maybe some parts of the commit message and when the code does not even compile, as long as you describe clearly what you'd like to do, what are the issues you are facing and what is missing or not yet finished, so that your mentors don't have to guess or tell you that things are missing or should be improved when you already know it.
The goal is really to have efficient discussions for both you and your mentors, so that your project can move forward fast with as few misunderstandings as possible and as little frustration as possible.
As much as possible you should work on different parts of your work in different branches, and avoid having similar commits you are working on in different branches.
It's much better to work on many small branches and patch series that can be regularly sent or resent to the mailing list, rather than on a single big one that can be sent only at the end when everything looks good.
It's up to you if you prefer to wait until your mentors have reviewed everything and found nothing wrong with your patches, which could be a good thing as it would likely decrease the reviewers' work on the mailing list, or if you prefer to send your patches when you think they are ready.
You might acknowledge your mentors' help with the work you are doing by adding a "Mentored-by: Mentor Name mentor@email" trailer for each of your mentors in the commit message of all the patches you send. We recommend doing this systematically instead of spending time finding which mentor helped or not on which patch.
Basically sending patch to the mailing list is the same process as when working on a micro-project.
A few things that you might want to do are:
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Make sure your mentors are Cc'ed on all of your patches.
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Make sure everyone who commented or got involved is also Cc'ed.
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Make sure Junio is among the recipients (in the "To:" header) if your patches have been reviewed.
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Consider adding the "Mentored-by:" trailers discussed above.
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Consider adding some "Helped-by:", "Reviewed-by:" or "Acked-by:" trailers if relevant.
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Don't forget bumping up the version of the patch series.
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Don't forget using [GSoC] or [Outreachy].
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Don't forget using [RFC] or [WIP], if it's relevant.
We encourage you to get as much help as you can from your mentors and the Git community according to the suggestions in the "Communication" section above.
Nevertheless you are also welcome to get help in many different ways that might not be mentioned above. Such help can come from the community, its people, tools, documentation or websites, as well as other people, tools or websites. You have to do most of the actual work and follow some rules though.
The following sections list some of these resources (people, tools, documentation, websites, etc.), sometimes along with suggestions about when they might be useful.
Some of these resources are also important as they can help you learn about the rules.
When communicating with other people, we encourage you to keep your mentors (or perhaps the whole community) in the loop though, if possible.
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Individual contributors
When someone contributed to something very relevant to your work, you might want to privately ask for help from them as they might know more and might be able to help you better than your mentors in some areas of your work.
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Org Admins (people responsible for Git being involved in the mentoring program)
They could be useful if, for example, you, along perhaps with your mentors, want to extend or change the duration of your mentoring program (if it is allowed by the mentoring program).
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Mentoring Program organizers
If you have issues related to the mentoring program, you can likely reach out to them.
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Git PLC (Project Leadership Committee) members
They are responsible for communicating with the Software Freedom Conservancy, which is Git's parent nonprofit organization. They are also responsible for enforcing Git's Code of Conduct, especially on the Git mailing list.
Please read, and try to keep in mind, the important documentation below:
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This can be useful if others' behavior annoys you or if your behavior might annoy other people.
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This documentation contains the Developer's Certificate of Origin, or DCO for short, which you have to know about when contributing to Git.
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It makes sure that Git, and the contribution you make to it, are free and open source software. You also have to know about it to fully make sense of the DCO above.
Please take a quick tour of those websites, if you haven't already, to know about all the resources that they make available to you.
Also note that you are very much encouraged to contribute to improving these sites during your mentoring program. It's very much appreciated, as it shows that you care about those who will come after you, even if it's not part of your main work.
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This is the home of this very documentation and Git's mentoring program related documentation. It also contains the Hacking-Git page which has a number of helpful links.
This website is maintained through its GitHub repo.
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This is the main Git website, with Git reference documentation automatically generated from the Documentation folder of the Git repo, as well as a free book, and general information about Git, including community information.
This website is maintained through its GitHub repo.
Successfully participating in a mentoring program with Git can boost your career in a number of different ways. Also even if it requires working regularly and being open to mentoring, it's not very difficult. We estimate that around 80% or more of the people we accept succeed.
It's possible that you will encounter difficulties in moving forward in your project. We try to list a few common ones here, along with some advice to help overcome them.
In general it's a good idea to discuss such issues with your mentor(s) as early as possible. This way you might get some help and be able to try different solutions before it's too late. One possible way to alleviate some issues could be to extend the mentoring period if the mentoring program allows it.
The main thing that could prevent you from succeeding is not having or dedicating enough time to work on your project. Some people we mentored had university classes, or found a full time job, or took some long vacation, or spent a lot of time with their family, which prevented them from dedicating enough time to their project. This resulted in us having to fail them, which is sad for everyone.
If you are planning to spend a significant amount of time doing other things than working on your project during the mentoring program, it might be better to not participate in it in the first place. You will save yourself and your mentor(s) a significant amount of frustration, and you will likely allow someone else to be successfully mentored and gain a lot from that experience.
Other roadblocks can more easily be overcome than not dedicating enough time. Even if you can work a lot, you will need a bit of free time during the mentoring program, so you may make things very difficult for yourself if you are planning to work on both your project and other things at the same time. Be considerate towards yourself and do not put yourself in such a bad situation in the first place.
Another thing that could slow you is if it's difficult for you to share with your mentor(s) about the technical hurdles you face. It could be that you have trouble debugging or understanding how things work or are supposed to work, and are afraid of asking for help.
When we review your work, we provide technical suggestions, but when you are starting it or in the middle of it, you are usually alone and it can be difficult for you to ask your mentor(s) to take a look at it. Please consider that the more transparent you are about your work, and the more precise and specific you are in your questions, the easier it is for us to help you, and for you to move forward.
We only request that you spend around 10 minutes trying to find a solution by yourself before you ask us about something. When you have tried to find a solution, it's also a good idea to tell us what you have tried or how you searched, as we can often help you be more efficient in this too.
Yet another roadblock that could sometimes prevent you from succeeding is personal issues of different kinds. They are sometimes related to your family or your partner. They are sometimes related to the other potential roadblocks above.
In general it's a good idea to talk about them early with your mentor, as we just cannot properly handle difficult personal situations we are not aware of. And regular communication, even using video chat, might not be enough to suspect that your personal situation might be difficult, if you are not explicit about it.
There are a lot of benefits in participating in mentoring programs with the Git project, not just the fact that the programs pay the participants a significant amount of money.
And it's not limited to the first time you participate. The more you participate, the more benefits you will reap. Participating as a mentor or a co-mentor after you have been mentored, or becoming a regular contributor, will also reflect very well on you and increase a number of benefits you get. It's also relatively easy, as you have already overcome the most difficult parts.
A number of former participants in a mentoring program with us have reported that it significantly boost their career, as they much more easily got job interviews, and then job offers with more well known companies.
Former participants also reported that they felt their software engineering skills improved significantly.
This is not just that they became more proficient with Git and source code management in general. It's a also at least about improved programming, testing, reviewing and collaborating skills.
We believe that being able to contribute significantly to a well known project like Git, also helps improve participants' self-confidence. They are likely to be less afraid to participate in and contribute to more complex software projects.
We strongly encourage the participants we mentor to create a blog about their work and regularly post on their blog, as we believe that it helps them in many ways. We encourage them to post on social media too.
We also mention participants in our Git Rev News newsletter both after they have been selected into a mentoring program, and after they successfully finished it.
Sometimes they get mentioned, or interviewed, in the blog posts of some well known Git related companies too, like for example:
- this GitLab blog post about Outreachy, or
- this GitHub blog post about the Git 2.43 release, where Kousik's GSoC 2023 work is mentioned.
We try to help successful participants come to the Git Merge conference and meet the community, often including their mentor(s), there. For that the Git project offers to reimburse the participants' travel expenses.
This is sometimes not possible due to visa issues, or the fact that the Git Merge unfortunately doesn't happen every year, though.
We hope you got an idea about how you will likely work with your mentor(s) and how things usually go during the mentoring period of a program such as GSoC or Outreachy. We hope you are also aware of the people, communication means and resources available to help you, as well as the rules you have to follow, the roadblocks you might encounter and the benefits you may reap.
As a reminder, don't be surprised if your mentors ask for things that are a bit different than what is described here. Typically your mentors will expect that you become more autonomous over time and will adjust things depending on how autonomous you already are.
Wishing you luck during your mentoring period!