GSoC

Google Summer of Code

These are some suggested Best Practices for Google Summer of Code projects - all feedback appreciated!

Mentors should set up intro meetings with their students asap
Students should set up a wiki for their project, linked from the ZAP and OWASP (or Mozilla) wikis
Students should set up a ZAP dev environment: http://code.google.com/p/zaproxy/wiki/Building
Students and mentors should agree an initial plan, ideally including/based on use cases
All mentors and students should join the ZAP Dev Group and introduce themselves
All mentors and students should have an initial ‘intro’ video call with the project lead (Simon)

Mentors should have at least weekly meetings with their students (format can be agreed, but video was found to be very useful last year)
Students should update their wiki at least weekly
Mentors should update the project lead (Simon) at regular intervals, frequency TBD

Ideally as much new code as possible should be implemented as new add-ons in the ZAP extensions project: https://code.google.com/p/zap-extensions/
If significant core changes are required then students should create a new http://code.google.com/p/zaproxy/ branch
Add-ons should follow the standard development process: https://code.google.com/p/zap-extensions/wiki/AddOnDevelopment eg starting off in the ‘alpha’ branch
All projects should aim for ‘release’ status by the end of the GSoC

Relatively short development cycles are encouraged, with students comitting changes and releasing new add-on versions regularly - this allows us to see that things are on track and gives the maximum opportunity for feedback from the community
Unit tests should be developed in conjunction with the code (in http://code.google.com/p/zaproxy-test/ ) - these should be configured to run on all new commits (by Simon)
Help and other documentation should be written, although this may lag behind development
All developments should follow the ZAP development guidelines: http://code.google.com/p/zaproxy/wiki/DevGuidelines eg easy to use, intuitive, internationalized etc

Any questions regarding ZAP development / best practice / feedback etc should be directed to the ZAP Dev Group - this gives the most visibility to the rest of the community
Community feedback should be encouraged as early as possible
All students will be encouraged to record a video demonstrating their finished project which will be promoted via the ZAP wiki and twitter feed