On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:34:34 +0100, Neil Mitchell <ndmitchell@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Gwern,
>
> Please update: "haskell-src-exts -> haskell-src" **Unknown**
>
> This project was an unqualified success. haskell-src-exts is now one
> of the most commonly used Haskell libraries, achieved the goals in the
> project proposal, and is an essential piece of Haskell infrastructure.

You can see this using Roel van Dijk's reversed dependencies overview [1]:
23 direct and 57 indirect dependencies on haskell-src-exts-1.8.0

Regards,
Henk-Jan van Tuyl


[1]
[url]http://bifunctor.homelinux.net/~roel/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/haskell-src-exts[/url]


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On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Henk-Jan van Tuyl <hjgtuyl@chello.nl> wrote:
> On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:34:34 +0100, Neil Mitchell <ndmitchell@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Gwern,
>>
>> Please update: "haskell-src-exts -> haskell-src" **Unknown**
>>
>> This project was an unqualified success. Â*haskell-src-exts is now one
>> of the most commonly used Haskell libraries, achieved the goals in the
>> project proposal, and is an essential piece of Haskell infrastructure.
>
> You can see this using Roel van Dijk's reversed dependencies overview [1]:
> 23 direct and 57 indirect dependencies on haskell-src-exts-1.8.0
>
> Regards,
> Henk-Jan van Tuyl

And how many of those used haskell-src-exts *before* the SoC project?
And would have used it regardless? You can't point to a popular
project which got a SoC student, and say look at how popular it is -
obviously the SoC student was hugely successful.

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On 31 Jan 2010, Malcolm Wallace pointed out:
> Google has announced that the Summer of Code programme will be running
> again this year. If haskell.org people would like to take part again
> this year, then we need volunteers:

The Darcs Team would certainly be delighted to participate in GSoC 2010,
perhaps under the haskell.org umbrella.

Leslie Hawthorne from Google has suggested the possibility of them being
"able to wrangle an extra slot or two for [Haskell.org] if they are
acting as an umbrella org for darcs."

[url]http://lists.osuosl.org/pipermail/darcs-users/2009-October/021761.html[/url]

I think we should make it very very clear that we would like this!

> First,
> * suggestions for suitable projects
> (in the past this was organised using a reddit)
> * an administrator to co-ordinate the application to Google
> (I have done it for the last three years but am very willing
> to hand on to someone else)

I'll mention the Darcs ideas page here:
[url]http://wiki.darcs.net/GoogleSummerOfCode[/url]

We're particularly interested in three things:
(i) making Darcs faster
(ii) building nice GUI tools and
(iii) working seamlessly with SVN/Git repositories

As for (i), we are also particularly interested in benchmarking.
Criterion and now Progression seem like really great tools; hopefully,
we can put them to good use. Meanwhile, perhaps there is extra room for
tools that help large programs in their benchmarking? Two
particularities may be [A] not always knowing how to get good benchmarks
out of large coarse grained tasks ("run darcs check on this repository")
and [b] big benchmarks ("run darcs check... on the GHC repo")

> Google will accept applications from organisations in the period 8th -
> 12th March 2010, approx 1900UTC.
>
> If haskell.org is accepted again, students can apply between 29th
> March - 9th April.
> More volunteers will be required:
>
> * to review student applications and choose which to accept
> * to supervise the accepted students
>
> Both of these roles are called "mentor" in the Google system. Putting
> together a good team of mentors before applying as an organisation is
> helpful towards us being accepted into the programme.

I'll volunteer as a mentor if it helps.

Darcs users: if you have a few spare hours this summer, this would be
a most excellent way to participate. Stick your hand up :-)

--
Eric Kow <http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/home/Eric.Kow>
PGP Key ID: 08AC04F9

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Hello!

[snip]
> We're particularly interested in three things:
> (i) making Darcs faster
> (ii) building nice GUI tools and
> (iii) working seamlessly with SVN/Git repositories
[snip]
>> Both of these roles are called "mentor" in the Google system. Putting
>> together a good team of mentors before applying as an organisation is
>> helpful towards us being accepted into the programme.
>
> I'll volunteer as a mentor if it helps.
>
> Darcs users: if you have a few spare hours this summer, this would be
> a most excellent way to participate. Stick your hand up :-)

I am volunteering as a mentor as well. My schedule is too crammed to go
the student way this year (and, probably, any future year).

I am particularly interested in mentoring (i) kinds of projects
mentioned by Eric above, but other will do, depending on what
prospective students come up with.

Yours,
Petr.
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Gwern Branwen wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Henk-Jan van Tuyl <hjgtuyl@chello.nl>
> wrote:
>> On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:34:34 +0100, Neil Mitchell
>> <ndmitchell@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Gwern,
>>>
>>> Please update: "haskell-src-exts -> haskell-src" **Unknown**
>>>
>>> This project was an unqualified success. *haskell-src-exts is now
>>> one
>>> of the most commonly used Haskell libraries, achieved the goals in
>>> the project proposal, and is an essential piece of Haskell
>>> infrastructure.
>>
>> You can see this using Roel van Dijk's reversed dependencies
>> overview [1]: 23 direct and 57 indirect dependencies on
>> haskell-src-exts-1.8.0
>>
>> Regards,
>> Henk-Jan van Tuyl
>
> And how many of those used haskell-src-exts *before* the SoC project?
> And would have used it regardless? You can't point to a popular
> project which got a SoC student, and say look at how popular it is -
> obviously the SoC student was hugely successful.

Regardless of that, is there any reason to disregard Neil's summary and not update your page?

Ganesh


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On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 6:20 AM, Sittampalam, Ganesh
<ganesh.sittampalam@credit-suisse.com> wrote:
> Gwern Branwen wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Henk-Jan van Tuyl <hjgtuyl@chello.nl>
>> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:34:34 +0100, Neil Mitchell
>>> <ndmitchell@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Gwern,
>>>>
>>>> Please update: "haskell-src-exts -> haskell-src" **Unknown**
>>>>
>>>> This project was an unqualified success. Â*haskell-src-exts is now
>>>> one
>>>> of the most commonly used Haskell libraries, achieved the goals in
>>>> the project proposal, and is an essential piece of Haskell
>>>> infrastructure.
>>>
>>> You can see this using Roel van Dijk's reversed dependencies
>>> overview [1]: 23 direct and 57 indirect dependencies on
>>> haskell-src-exts-1.8.0
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Henk-Jan van Tuyl
>>
>> And how many of those used haskell-src-exts *before* the SoC project?
>> And would have used it regardless? You can't point to a popular
>> project which got a SoC student, and say look at how popular it is -
>> obviously the SoC student was hugely successful.
>
> Regardless of that, is there any reason to disregard Neil's summary and not update your page?
>
> Ganesh

I prefer to wait. haskell-src-exts was popular before, it was popular
after. The question is not whether the patches were applied, or
whether the mentor told Google it was successful, but whether it was
the best possible use of the SoC slot. If features do not get used,
then it wasn't a good SoC. If you know 3 or 4 uses of the new
haskell-src-exts features in (relatively) major applications like
hlint, then I'll concede the point and mark it a success.

--
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You can add me to the list of voices that were unwilling to use it before
the summer-of-code project due to the random incompatibilities caused by the
huge supply of extensions it supported out of the box, but who were happy to
switch to it after the changes were made to make them configurable.

That said, I don't support a major public application.

But keep in mind haskell-src-exts is used by almost every quasiquoter that
wants antiquotation, so the improvements in mere compatibility with Haskell
98 as a baseline have had fairly wide-reaching impact, affecting almost
every one of those 23 (or 57 depending how you count) dependencies on the
haskell-src-exts library. One might argue that that well exceeds your 3 or 4
feature user guideline. =)

The rest is just gravy that happens to permit a number of applications such
as refactoring browsers that were impossible with the previous
implementation. And, as I recall, the fairly radical exploratory "pretty
print . parse = id" goal was explicitly listed merely as a secondary goal on
the original application.

It seems hardly appropriate to judge the impact of the entire SoC effort on
the impact of that secondary exploratory component.

-Edward Kmett

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 6:20 AM, Sittampalam, Ganesh
> <ganesh.sittampalam@credit-suisse.com> wrote:
> > Gwern Branwen wrote:
> >> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Henk-Jan van Tuyl <hjgtuyl@chello.nl>
> >> wrote:
> >>> On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:34:34 +0100, Neil Mitchell
> >>> <ndmitchell@gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Hi Gwern,
> >>>>
> >>>> Please update: "haskell-src-exts -> haskell-src" **Unknown**
> >>>>
> >>>> This project was an unqualified success. haskell-src-exts is now
> >>>> one
> >>>> of the most commonly used Haskell libraries, achieved the goals in
> >>>> the project proposal, and is an essential piece of Haskell
> >>>> infrastructure.
> >>>
> >>> You can see this using Roel van Dijk's reversed dependencies
> >>> overview [1]: 23 direct and 57 indirect dependencies on
> >>> haskell-src-exts-1.8.0
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>> Henk-Jan van Tuyl
> >>
> >> And how many of those used haskell-src-exts *before* the SoC project?
> >> And would have used it regardless? You can't point to a popular
> >> project which got a SoC student, and say look at how popular it is -
> >> obviously the SoC student was hugely successful.
> >
> > Regardless of that, is there any reason to disregard Neil's summary and
> not update your page?
> >
> > Ganesh
>
> I prefer to wait. haskell-src-exts was popular before, it was popular
> after. The question is not whether the patches were applied, or
> whether the mentor told Google it was successful, but whether it was
> the best possible use of the SoC slot. If features do not get used,
> then it wasn't a good SoC. If you know 3 or 4 uses of the new
> haskell-src-exts features in (relatively) major applications like
> hlint, then I'll concede the point and mark it a success.
>
> --
> gwern
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>

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On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Edward Kmett <ekmett@gmail.com> wrote:
> You can add me to the list of voices that were unwilling to use it before
> the summer-of-code project due to the random incompatibilities caused by the
> huge supply of extensions it supported out of the box, but who were happy to
> switch to it after the changes were made to make them configurable.

This was indeed the main priority of the project, and the reason why
even I would not have recommended anyone to use haskell-src-exts in
production before the project.

> The rest is just gravy that happens to permit a number of applications such
> as refactoring browsers that were impossible with the previous
> implementation. And, as I recall, the fairly radical exploratory "pretty
> print . parse = id" goal was explicitly listed merely as a secondary goal on
> the original application.

Indeed it was, and I am not aware of any major applications that
actually use the exact-print functionality yet (please, tell me if you
have one!). I do know of several that make very good use of the new
Annotated syntax tree, though, which was introduced as a step towards
exact-printing. The benefits of that, together with the configurable
extensions, is more than enough to now make me happily recommend
haskell-src-exts to anyone working with Haskell source code in any
application. The rest is, as you accurately put it, just gravy.

I must admit I'm a bit sad to have the value of my project questioned
in this way, a project that I myself was more than pleased with, both
with the actual work achieved and the significant positive feedback I
have received after its conclusion. If haskell-src-exts was indeed
popular even before the project, that's all well and good to me. But
it doesn't mean that the library offered to the users then was
satisfactory, nor does it mean that the project failed to deliver
something that those same users needed and/or could make good use of.
Even if the number of direct users did not rise dramatically as a
consequence of the project, why would it not be valid use of a project
slot to greatly improve a library that was already popular? Browsing
the numbers [1] posted by Don Stewart in September last year (the
Haskell Symposium figures, which is the latest I could find) suggests
a substantial increase of downloads of the package both before, during
and after the project, but I can only speculate why. And since the
project concluded late August, figures for September and onwards would
have been more telling.

I'm at a loss as to what criteria is actually used to judge success
here. It seems to me a bit like the eternal discussion between "basic
research" and "applied research". Just because something
(research/library/project) doesn't have an immediate, palpable impact
and/or delivers a visible tool, that certainly doesn't imply that it
doesn't have merit or won't have as profound an impact on the domain,
if more diffuse than a tool (or other palpable deliverable) would.

/Niklas

[1] [url]http://www.galois.com/~dons/hackage/september-2009/total-downloads.html[/url]
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On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Niklas Broberg <niklas.broberg@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm at a loss as to what criteria is actually used to judge success
> here. It seems to me a bit like the eternal discussion between "basic
> research" and "applied research". Just because something
> (research/library/project) doesn't have an immediate, palpable impact
> and/or delivers a visible tool, that certainly doesn't imply that it
> doesn't have merit or won't have as profound an impact on the domain,
> if more diffuse than a tool (or other palpable deliverable) would.
>
> /Niklas

There may be an eternal discussion on it, but it seems pretty clear to
me which side SoC comes down on: [url]http://code.google.com/soc/[/url]

"Through Google Summer of Code, accepted student applicants are paired
with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining
exposure to real-world software development scenarios and the
opportunity for employment in areas related to their academic
pursuits. In turn, the participating projects are able to more easily
identify and bring in new developers. Best of all, more source code is
created and released for the use and benefit of all."

or [url]http://socghop.appspot.com/document/show/program/google/gsoc2009/faqs#goals[/url]

# Google Summer of Code has several goals:

* Get more open source code created and released for the benefit of all
* Inspire young developers to begin participating in open source development
* Help open source projects identify and bring in new developers
and committers
* Provide students the opportunity to do work related to their
academic pursuits during the summer (think "flip bits, not burgers")
* Give students more exposure to real-world software development
scenarios (e.g., distributed development, software licensing
questions, mailing-list etiquette)

--
gwern
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> There may be an eternal discussion on it, but it seems pretty clear to
> me which side SoC comes down on: [url]http://code.google.com/soc/[/url]

I'm really not sure what you're getting at. How do the points you list
not relate to my project? And how does my analogy contradict any of
those points? If the goal is to have "more source code [..] created
and released for the use and benefit of all", how does my project fail
to achieve this?

/Niklas
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