This is exactly the observation I have from the Mahout students. I would rather not have a project re-invent something that we already have, but I am thrilled to have a student who is self-directed and horrified at the thought of having a student who needs to be micro-managed. Even if the self-directed student starts in the right direction, they are enormously more likely to wind up somewhere useful for the community. Conversely, the micro-managee might start with the best initial idea (mine, of course) but they will almost certainly wind up nowhere.
Academic-style originality is a nearly orthogonal concept. On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 11:31 AM, Rahul Akolkar <rahul.akol...@gmail.com>wrote: > The motivation for original ideas isn't purely in the academic sense > of it, but also in the observation that on average, those who come up > with their own proposals feel more connected with the project at hand > and are more likely to retain interest and drive the work to a > successful completion. >
