Hello, and welcome to Squeak's Summer of Code!
I apologize for waiting so much before sending this message, but now here we are.
As you know, your proposals have been selected for Squeak's Summer of Code. Fine, but now what? Here's a list of things you need to know and/or do for your SoC project (you probably already know most of them).
Mentors Get in contact with your mentor, and discuss and decide how you should interact with him during the summer: email, IM, IRC etc. Also, since we've plenty of available mentors, we'll be assigning each student a second mentor to help him. We're currently in the process of assigning them; as soon as we complete the assignment, we'll tell you who shall be your second mentor. This second mentor will also act as backup in case the first one can't continue mentoring you.
Mailing lists Subscribe to the main Squeak mailing lists. These include the Beginners and Squeak-dev mailing lists, and are the places where most of the Squeak community lives. You should also subscribe to the SoC mailing list and to the other mailing lists that your mentor may suggest. Almost all mailing lists are hosted on http://lists.squeakfoundation.org .
Contact data We need to be able to get in touch with you if the need arises. Please send a message to me ( giovanni@corriga.net ) with your contact info: other email addresses that you check often, IRC and IM contacts, even a phone number.
Squeaksource Get yourself an account on Squeaksource, if you don't have one. Squeaksource ( http://www.squeaksource.com ) is a centralized monticello server, with some extra features like web/wiki pages, integration with SqueakMap etc. Many of the packages you'll work on have their home on Squeaksource.
The tools and the library If this is the first time you work with a Smalltalk system, then you have to get acquainted with the development tools: code browser, method finder, monticello browser, debugger, etc. etc. Also, start to learn the structure of the class library. Ask you mentors for help on this, and try to develop some small applications to get your feet wet in Smalltalk.
Weekly IRC meetings and reports During the summer months, we're going to hold a short IRC meeting at the beginning of each week. During this meeting we'll quickly go over what you've done in the past week, what you're planning to do in the current week, what problems you did encounter.
Summer of Squeak Blog I've created a blog called Summer of Squeak ( http://blog.summer.squeak.org ) that will be used to track your SoC projects. I invite you to join the blog and post regularly about your work. I'll immediately proceed to add you to the blog.
ESUG Conference ESUG (the European Smalltalk User Group) organizes a yearly conference of Smalltalk pratictioners. This year's conference will be held in Amsterdam from August 23rd to August 29th. Since the conference will be held soon after the end of the Summer of Code, it would be cool if the students could meet in person. You can apply for a student volunteer job at the conference: if you're accepted ESUG will pay your admittance to the conference and your accomodations for the days of the conference, in exchange for some light work during the conference.
If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to contact your mentor or to send a message to this mailing list.
Giovanni