Python in Google Summer of Code 2014

Python project contributors and student enthusiasts, mark your calendars: Google Summer of Code applications open soon!

Google Summer of Code is an annual, global program pairing student developers with mentors in open source projects for paid summer internships.

You can learn more about this year's Google Summer of Code here.

Python projects

Python serves as an umbrella organization for around a dozen open source Python projects each year. This year, the following projects are participating:

• CPython: core Python and the standard library
• GNU Mailman: the ubiquitous mailing list package
• Mercurial: a distributed source control management tool 
• BinPy: a platform for building circuit-based applications or logical games
• Vispy: high-performance interactive visualizations
• TARDIS-SN: supernova radiative transfer in Python
• SunPy: Python for solar physics
• Scrapy: a fast, high-level screen scraping and web crawling framework
• Theano: an optimizing compiler for numpy.ndarray and scipy.sparse matrix
• Kivy: a library for making cross-platform, multi-touch apps
• MNE-Python: a software package for processing MEG and EEG data
• scikit-image: a collection of algorithms for image processing
• scikit-learn: a Python module for machine learning
• PyDy: a package for studying multibody dynamics with Python
• SciPy and NumPy: open-source software for mathematics, science, and engineering
• AstroPy: a community Python library for astronomy

Students

Google Summer of Code is a paid summer internship program for college/university students who will be 18 years of age or older on April 21, 2014. Participating in Google Summer of Code is a great way to develop real-world software engineering skills while giving back to an open source Python project you love.

Read more about eligibility in the FAQ.

If you are interested in participating in Google Summer of Code under the Python umbrella, it's time to start exploring potential projects and practicing the tools of open source development:

1. Read the Python Google Summer of Code guidelines.
2. Review this year's projects and their idea pages.
3. Start practicing the tools of open source development, including:
   
   • IRC
   • a revision control system like git or svn
   • the diff and patch utilities
   • bug trackers

If you've never used some of these tools before, don't worry! You have plenty of time to practice. A good resource for getting familiar with these tools is the OpenHatch training missions.

Important deadlines

• March 10: Student application period opens.
• March 21: Student application deadline.
• April 21: Accepted student proposals announced.

Note that the best way to boost your chances of being accepted for Google Summer of Code is to start contributing to a project before you apply. If you have questions about how to get started or just want some friendly encouragement, visit the OpenHatch project and say hello.

Python Job Board - Call for volunteers

Dear Python Community,

for many years, the Python Job board was run by volunteers - most of the time by just one volunteer at a time until they moved on to spend their time on other things. We've now reached such a point again.

In these years, the volume on the job board has significantly increased, as it got more and more popular. It is now at around 2-5 postings per day and most of those positions get filled quickly
- which is an indication of how useful this service is to the Python community.

To scale up and revive the job board, the PSF would now like to setup a *team of volunteers* to run the job board and this is our call for help.

How does the job board work ?

At the moment, the job board is maintained on the legacy site , but since we've launched our brand new website, we'd like to move the job board over to that site.

Instead of the repository based approach used on the old site, the new site has database support to aid in more easily processing and filing job listings.

There's a job board mailing list which helps coordinate the task of reviewing and filing job offers. Currently, all job submissions get sent to this mailing list, but with the job board app, the submission process can be moved over to the website's database.

What does it take to run the job board ?

You have to review the job postings, request changes if they are too long, don't clearly state the need for Python skills, or have quality issues.

After review, the job board app will then allow posting the jobs on the website by simply setting the status to published.

Communication with the submitters is usually done by email and via the mailing list, so all team members can see the communication and help out if necessary.

Please note: This is just a high level overview. The details need to be hashed out by the new team.

Does the job board app work already ?

It does, but is disabled at the moment due to lack of volunteers.

Since the site just launched there may also well be some issues with the job board app.

On the positive side there's a lot happening around the site at the moment, so if you have change requests, these will usually be implemented quickly - or you can jump in, hack on the job board app and submit a pull request yourself:

• https://github.com/python/pythondotorg/tree/master/jobs

These are exciting times and this is your chance to make a difference !

Ok, I like new challenges - where do I sign up ?

Great :-) Please write to jobs@python.org

I have a question...

If you have questions, you can write to the jobs list at jobs@python.org or the PSF board at psf@python.org.

Many thanks,
Marc-Andre Lemburg
Director, Python Software Foundation