Mentoring Program

[Charles Davis]

Hi Phil,
On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 22:14 +0100, Phil Bull wrote:
> Hi Charles,
> 
> On Sun, 2008-08-17 at 11:55 -0500, Charles Davis wrote:
> [...]
> > I like Dougie's idea of making a series of tutorials. (this isn't just
> > because Dougie is my mentor, it's because I have done a little bit of
> > almost all facets of the doc team since i joined as a student.) There is
> > a valid need for a tutorial or standard walkthrough to get folks up to a
> > base level of proficiency. Bzr is a pain in the neck and I have had
> > troubles with it myself. I know that if we had a standard walkthrough
> > with examples for BZR it would help folks that are interested in working
> > on the development branch of the official docs.
> 
> What do you think would have been more helpful for you: A task-based
> reference-type guide (info on how to perform specific tasks) or a
> step-by-step walkthrough-type guide (building up from basic to advanced
> concepts in some sort of logical order)? Perhaps both, or neither?
I think a combination of the two. The information does exist but some
folks may not find it presented in an order that is helpful to them. I
particularly like the idea of task and goal oriented tutorials. Granted
we are not the same as MOTU, but they have some good ideas when you look
at their "tutorials" they take a known package and use it as an example.
IIRC they use the GNU hello for one of their tutorials. I know that it
might be an extra step but I would be willing to be that if we put
together a "training branch" of a portion of Ubuntu-doc with subtle
( and not so subtle errors ), it would be a worthwhile. I for one know
that Before i contributed any patches I downloaded the dev branch of the
docs a few times and played with it. I also keep a copy of Hardy's docs
(the full package) to work on and learn with. If we had a stable but
"broken" branch it might make mentoring easier. Just a thought, take it
for what you will :)
> 
> > The thought of pointing people in specific directions before they join
> > the list is probably a good idea because it saves effort in the long
> > run. Not everyone is going to be interested in working in all areas.
> > Many will start out doing one thing and end up on another project. So
> > maybe implementing a set of tutorials then moving along with the
> > mentoring for those that complete the tutorials and continue to show
> > interest will help. I don't think that it is in the interest of the team
> > to load up our mentors with a bunch of ghost students. Let us prove we
> > are interested and will contribute then go from there.
> 
> That seems reasonable. I was a bit worried about scaring people off by
> putting them through a contributionless "classroom" stage first, but
> using it as an opportunity to demonstrate interest is a good point. It
> would also reduce the mentor's workload considerably, as long as we got
> the material in the tutorials right.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Phil
> 
Cheers,
-- 
Chuck
charles.davis at ubuntu.com
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