[Bf-committers] GSoC ideas page

Matt Ebb matt at mke3.net
Fri Mar 19 23:32:02 CET 2010


On 20/03/2010, at 08:12 , Tom M wrote:

>> - We need students with proven competence in the area they want to
>> contribute to
>
> That I disagree with.  A coder should be proven competent by dint of
> previous coding experience in something.  I'd bet 99% of kernel and
> compiler coders could jump in to Blender without difficulty for
> instance.  Most of our successful project participants did not have
> previous coding experience in the area they wanted to contribute to.

No, I think Brecht is absolutely right. There is not a 'hierarchy of  
coding talent' as if it's a generic commodity, that starts with kernel  
programmers or whatever at the top. Different people have different  
areas of experience and ability. I most probably would certainly not  
want a compiler programmer working on anything that involves user  
interaction or workflow, if they aren't already quite experienced and  
familiar with Blender and how 3D artists work.

The same thing goes for plenty of other areas, rendering for example  
demands specific knowledge and techniques that not a lot of coders in  
general are familiar with. Without a decent level of experience and  
awareness of the domain, people will make the same old rookie  
mistakes, and generally won't know how to actually make something  
useful in the context of 3D production. Again in the rendering  
example, I'd wager than even most specialist academics/researchers in  
the rendering field would need to learn a lot in order to make a  
useful contribution to Blender, and tools that are useful in practical  
production.

Matt


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