llvm dev - Oct 2016 - BoF: Raising Next Generation of LLVM Developers

Dear community,

   We are trying to setup a BoF ( Raising Next Generation of LLVM 
Developers, http://sched.co/8Yzs).

   In our academic-oriented environments the main work force is 
students: undergrads, grads or PhD (rarely postdocs). Often we have 
limited time to bring somebody up to speed and we have to it in a 
productive and motivating for both parties way. I believe most of you 
had (maybe more than once) a task to bring somebody up to speed with 
LLVM and you are well-aware of the challenges.

   Last couple of years it seems difficult to attract talented students. 
It is even more difficult to keep them around long enough to turn the 
mentoring investment into a profit to the organization. This in turn, 
ends with a chicken-and-egg problem from the management point of view. 
It seems that more effective mentoring and multi-organization support 
could have a positive impact on this issue.

   We think dedicating a BoF could kick off a fruitful discussion if we 
get all parties involved. Firstly, sharing experience and getting more 
people interested in mentoring will help. Secondly, asking the 
participating (ex-) students can give us better understanding of the 
daily issues they have/had. Lastly, potentially involving HR people 
could help to transition our best students (or unemployed contributors) 
to more stable positions and thus keeping them around longer.

   We have thought of a several potential directions for this BoF:

   * Discuss how to make contributions to llvm easier. Eg. classify the 
bugs/fixmes for newbies and put them online...

   * Share mentoring experience

   * Start thinking about next GSoC

   * Revisit community OpenProjects web pages.

   * Networking, esp for students, unemployed and HR.


   We would be happy to hear from you ( sorry for the late notice ;( ) 
what do you think. We would be happy to add or change the foreseen 
agenda for the BoF.

   Finally, if you are interested to hear more please come and visit us 
on Thu, 3 Nov, at 3pm (Rm+LL21CD).

Best regards,
Vassil

On 31 October 2016 at 13:20, Vassil Vassilev via cfe-dev
<cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>   We think dedicating a BoF could kick off a fruitful discussion if we get
> all parties involved. Firstly, sharing experience and getting more people
> interested in mentoring will help. Secondly, asking the participating (ex-)
> students can give us better understanding of the daily issues they
have/had.
> Lastly, potentially involving HR people could help to transition our best
> students (or unemployed contributors) to more stable positions and thus
> keeping them around longer.
>
>   We have thought of a several potential directions for this BoF:
>
>   * Discuss how to make contributions to llvm easier. Eg. classify the
> bugs/fixmes for newbies and put them online...
Hi Vassil. This is a fantastic idea for a BoF. I'd perhaps add
improved documentation and tutorials to the list.

I've just shared a very straight-forward RFC based on a lightning talk
on the same topic at the LLVM Cauldron earlier this year, which may
also be of interest
http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-November/106696.html

Best,

Alex

Hi Alex,
On 01/11/16 14:21, Alex Bradbury wrote:
> On 31 October 2016 at 13:20, Vassil Vassilev via cfe-dev
> <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>>    We think dedicating a BoF could kick off a fruitful discussion if we
get
>> all parties involved. Firstly, sharing experience and getting more
people
>> interested in mentoring will help. Secondly, asking the participating
(ex-)
>> students can give us better understanding of the daily issues they
have/had.
>> Lastly, potentially involving HR people could help to transition our
best
>> students (or unemployed contributors) to more stable positions and thus
>> keeping them around longer.
>>
>>    We have thought of a several potential directions for this BoF:
>>
>>    * Discuss how to make contributions to llvm easier. Eg. classify the
>> bugs/fixmes for newbies and put them online...
> Hi Vassil. This is a fantastic idea for a BoF. I'd perhaps add
> improved documentation and tutorials to the list.
That's a good point.
>
> I've just shared a very straight-forward RFC based on a lightning talk
> on the same topic at the LLVM Cauldron earlier this year, which may
> also be of interest
> http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-November/106696.html
I read the mail thread and the slides. Nice! It seems that having a 
'welcome bot' and default reviewer assigned by analyzing the previous 
committers in the area could a good solution. I guess that could be also 
something to raise up at the 'migrate to github' BoF as it seems there 
are already such tools available there.

Cheers,
Vassil
>
> Best,
>
> Alex