linux-kernel - Re: First kernel patch (optimization)

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Date:	Sat, 19 Sep 2015 09:52:44 +0530
From:	Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@...il.com>
To:	Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>,
	Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
	Josh Boyer <jwboyer@...oraproject.org>,
	Eric Curtin <ericcurtin17@...il.com>,
	Austin S Hemmelgarn <ahferroin7@...il.com>,
	Steve Calfee <stevecalfee@...il.com>,
	Valentina Manea <valentina.manea.m@...il.com>,
	Shuah Khan <shuah.kh@...sung.com>,
	USB list <linux-usb@...r.kernel.org>,
	Kernel development list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: First kernel patch (optimization)

On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 10:26:24PM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 12:42:48AM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
>
> Rather, what concerns me is that we aren't pushing people to go
> *beyond* cleanup patches.  We have lots of tutorials about how to
> create perfectly formed patches; but we don't seem to have patches
> about how to do proper benchmarking.  Or how to check system call and
> ioctl interfaces to make sure the code is doing appropriate input
> checking.  So I don't want to pre-reject these people; but to rather
> push them and to help them to try their hand at more substantive work.
> 
> What surprises me is the apparent assumption that people need a huge
> amount of hand-holding on how to properly form a patch, but that
> people will be able to figure out how to do proper benchmarking, or
> design proper abstractions, etc., as skills that will magically appear
> full-formed into the new kernel programmer's mind without any help or
> work on our part.
Reading Ted's earlier mail I was thinking since I don't have some of the
skills mentioned, maybe I am in wrong place. But what Ted said now is
almost the same what I said in the Ksummit discussion about recruitment.
I will copy-paste here for reference:
"In my opinion the main problem is lack of direction or guidance. As a 
newbie I send my first patch, it gets accepted, I have a party to
celebrate and do more style correction and few more patches are accepted.
But by that time I am getting bored with just style correction and want
to do something more.
Now the problem starts. No one is there to guide me and I as a newbie
will not be that much capable enough to find things to do on my own. And
I start loosing the interest. Newbies who are coming from Eudyptula or
starting on their own will face this. But on the otherhand participants
of Outreachy will get a Mentor to guide them and gets a stipend to keep
them motivated. Stipend may not matter to the right candidate who has
interest but having a mentor is the big difference."

This is from my own experience as I have gone through that time phrase.
But now after one year I know there are numerous things to do. But still
I don't have some of the skills Ted mentioned.

I know I will get the skills which I don't have now but since I am on my
own that will be a time consuming process. Even more time consuming as
this is not part of my dayjob. But if I had a mentor/guide who could
have given some hint the process might have been much much faster.

regards
sudip

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