GSoC idea: Drop test workarounds

[Alex Henrie]

2018-02-23 1:32 GMT-07:00 Nikolay Sivov <bunglehead at gmail.com>:
> On 2/23/2018 9:20 AM, Zebediah Figura wrote:
>> On 23/02/18 00:07, Alex Henrie wrote:
>>> Could we have a student systematically remove test workarounds for
>>> Windows <= 2000? I've recently taken care of several of them, but
>>> there are many more that only serve to confuse people and increase
>>> compilation time.
>>>
>>> -Alex
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Is this really appropriate for a GSoC project? This seems more like
>> busywork than anything.
>>
>> At any rate I'd be surprised if anyone takes it up.
>>
>>
>
> Yes, I don't think it's suitable. I think consensus some years ago was
> that general tasks like "make the project better", by fixing random
> bugs, or otherwise, are not appropriate for GSoC. Instead it should be
> something specific enough, ideally that has a potential to be flexible.
>
> I'm not sure, but it's possible Google has some restrictions on what
> should be a valid project too.
>
>

OK, good to know. I looked around and found that Google says "For the
mentor and the organization, half the fun is helping a student do
something novel and cool. Infrastructure per se isn’t necessarily
boring, but it should be part of a luminous vision."[1] This kind of
test cleanup wouldn't count as "novel and cool".

-Alex

[1] https://google.github.io/gsocguides/student/writing-a-proposal