Re: ALSA kernel projects - for academic purposes

[Geraldo Nascimento <geraldogabriel@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Sep 29, 2021 at 11:07:15AM -0400, Ruben Safir wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 07:26:08PM -0300, Geraldo Nascimento wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 10:28:01PM +0530, Muni Sekhar wrote:
> > > On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 10:02 PM Valdis Klētnieks
> > > <valdis.kletnieks@xxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 19:34:59 +0530, Muni Sekhar said:
> > > > > What small projects would you suggest to a novice with the ALSA
> > > > > kernel. The aim is to develop a familiarity with the ALSA kernel
> > > > > source code, and also to submit it for academic purposes.
> > 
> > I'm not an academicist by far but if you want your patches to be academic,
> > I think it's more of a question of scientific rigour and scientific
> > method, 
> 
> 
> No - it is an issue of education.  They are trying to learn something
> that they don't already know.  The contribution is they become educated.
>
> > such that when the patch(set) is finally accepted by the Linux
> > community and Linus Torvalds ultimately, you can write a paper about
> > it.
> >
> 
> 
> They are not writing a paper for Linus.  They are writing it for their
> dean or mentor.
>

Hello Ruben,

I don't see your point here. I mentioned not being in academia myself
but last time I was, the academics, from the most junior to the most
seasoned scholar, are writing for journals. They are writing to get
published and cited hopefully.

If they were writing for their dean or mentor to grade them, that would
be called homework. While that's arguably part of education, higher
or otherwise, Muni Sekhar certainly did not ask for help with his
homework.

> 
> > Obviously there are a lot of things an academicist could bring from his
> > background to improve the Linux kernel, 
> 
> Yeah - but that is not what they are trying to do.  And if that was the
> case, this would likely not be the list for it, since this is a newbies
> list.
> 
> 
> > My suggestion is to ask Takashi Iwai if he has in mind 
> 
> BOINK - the doesn't need a new student dragging on his tail and if he
> did then he would chose an intern to help with his code.
> 
> You are failing to understand how higher education works.

I do have my gripes with higher education and I never suggested I
understood it.

As to contacting the maintainer precisely of the part of the kernel you
want to contribute (ALSA kernel-side for Muni Sekhar in this case)
before actually contributing any code, this sounds, at least to me,
like sensible advice.

Thank you,
Geraldo Nascimento

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