Summer jobs and internships can be wonderful learning experiences. Typically a student is hired by a company or organization to help out on a project. If all goes well it's enriching and educational, and hopefully fun along the way. But the tasks are imposed - the intern adapts to the plan and works to fulfill predetermined objectives.

For the eight Joomla! students chosen from more than 50 applicants accepted to the Google Summer of Code, they get to be the masters of their own program, from start to finish. They will discover new things and enhance the software with innovations that didn't exist before. They are creators and developers, with ownership of their concepts. It is an extremely empowering way for people to gain experience, grow and build their career, while giving back and invigorating our favorite Open Source project.

I'll never get tired of saying that Joomla! is special because of its community. The summer of code is another example. Because Joomla! is a community-driven project, we have young people who can become involved, we have senior members willing to share their expertise, and we have the possibility of this promising summer of code.

We are honored this month on the magazine to be publishing articles submitted by our GSoC students. Thanks to all of them for taking time out from writing code to write some lines about their work. Readers can comment, encourage and follow their progress. Also don't miss Chad Windnagle's article "Meet Joomla!'s 2012 Google Summer of Code Students".

It's a special edition of summer reading from Joomla's best and brightest!