Re: Google Summer of Code

["Matthew M. Burke" <matthew@...>]

A number of points:

Jim Whitehead has done a little work on the application and he rightly 
points out that we need to plan on getting this out in sufficient time.  
Although we could submit is as late as the 12th, I really think it would 
be best to get it in by the 10th at the latest.  The 7th would be even 
better, but maybe we need the extra weekend.

I plan to spend a good chunk of this evening working on this (as soon as 
I get the Discrete Math finals graded...).  I've spent a chunk of this 
morning looking at what other groups wrote and proposed for last year's 
program.  John Belmonte has raised a good point about
exactly who is this "lua user community" that will be submitting the 
application.

I have to say that after looking over material from the previous 
competitions I'm not sure I agree with John, but this is something that 
needs to be hashed out so that we can actually write up who "we" are.  
Although a number of organizations that have participated in the past 
are somewhat formal (the Apache Foundation, Oregon State U, Ruby Central 
Inc, Wikimedia Foundation, Zope Foundation), I think a roughly equal 
number of them are more nebulous (Handhelds.org, Gallery, SquirrelMail).

Several recent ideas on the list would make good projects (IMNSHO): a 
Lua schema validator, a "literate" description of the Lua source (e.g. 
the "complete disassmebly" idea that has been tossed around.

But what would really help is for people TO WRITE UP THEIR IDEAS on the 
wiki page(http://lua-users.org/wiki/GoogleSummerOfCodeIdeas).  Initially 
at least don't worry about pretty, well-written, etc.  Just get things 
written.  The more detail the better.  Particularly references to 
background material, previous work, etc.

Offering to mentor the project you write up is nice but not as critical 
as just getting things on the list.

Matt