Mentoring Program Updates

Here are a few updates on the mentoring program that I announced in a previous blog post.

First, I ended up keeping applications open for 12 days. During that time, I got 34 applications. Many of the 9 committer-mentors who initially offered to mentor one person ended up deciding that they would be willing to mentor two people, so I was able to send out 14 acceptances, which I think is a great result, especially considering that this is the first time we've done something like this.

But what about all of the people who were applied and not accepted, or who did not apply but are still interested in learning more about hacking on PostgreSQL? How can we support them and encourage them to get involved and contribute? I'm pleased to be able to announce two additional efforts in that direction.

First,  I decided to spin up a Discord server, which anyone is welcome to join. The purpose of this Discord server is for people who are interested in hacking on PostgreSQL to connect with each other and with experienced hackers who can help them learn how to do it better. Initially, I sent out invitations to all of the committers who agreed to mentor, and all of those who applied for a mentor. However, one of my colleagues then tweeted a link to the Discord, and it now has almost 300 people in it!

Maybe you'd like to join, too. If so, this query will give you the invite link:

SELECT string_agg(chr(c+46),'') FROM unnest(array[58,70,70,66,69,12,1,1,54,59,69,53,65,68,54,0,57,57,1,52,74,4,25,11,29,41,75,68,43]) AS c

Once you're there, we've got a #resources channel where people have started to post links to some useful videos, and a #coding-questions channel where you can ask questions about writing code for PostgreSQL, and we'll probably add some more channels as we go.

Second, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum has put together a survey about an event we're tentatively calling the "PostgreSQL Hacking Workshop." The idea is that everyone would watch a recorded video in advance, and then get together for a discussion of it, with the idea of helping people who are interested learn how to start hacking on PostgreSQL. If you would be interested in participating in such an event, please fill out the survey.