>

>>> The interested students will likely also be at least casual Emacs users.

>>> So, some degree of familiarity is expected.

>>

>> User-level familiarity doesn't help in these matters, IME.

>

>>> Other than that, how is Emacs dramatically different from working with

>>> any other large codebase?

>>

>> In a nutshell, Emacs is much larger than most other projects, and its

>> features are much less localized than those of other large projects.

>

>But not every feature, right? Some parts are easier to hack than others.

>I imagine that many Elisp parts are somewhat easier compared to C code.

>

>>> What is needed is a formulation of projects/features that are desired.

>>> Mentors do not have to be maintainers. Experienced Emacs contributors

>>> can be the mentors (also, mentoring a student can be a good addition to

>>> some types of CVs).

>>

>> We have etc/TODO which could be used as a source of ideas.

>

>Are there any specific todo items there that you view as more suitable

>for people with limited experience in Emacs codebase?

I am not sure if this is something, I hope you don't mind me asking, but could a

work to modularize Org, be an appropriate subject?

For example turn displaying pretty text (bold, italics etc), pretty links,

tables, dates, and perhaps some other stuff into, from Org-mode, independent,

minor modes that could be used in other parts of Emacs and more independently of

Org mode. I think both Org-mode and Hyperbole, and perhaps some other libraries

(button.el, help-mode, info), could use some minor mode that works with

links. For us users, it would mean less cruft loaded into Emacs, if those big

players could share some code.

I haven't done much research on this, just something I had in my head for a long