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Sergio Fedi

Where to start contributing

As a fairly experienced Smalltalk programmer but a very new user of Pharo,

Where do you guys suggest me to start contributing?

To be more specific, there are parts of the system I don't know, and practices and conventions of Pharo that I don't grasp yet, so it seems that work that can be done withour relying on that knowledge would be more suitable for me.

I'm open to a pair programming session via Skype/Teamviewer or other medium.

For example, I was contemplating on defining the About text for the Versionner in light of the recent discussions.

CyrilFerlicot

Re: Where to start contributing

Hi,
there is many things you can do.

- you can use the Pharo 5 image and check for something wrong, if you
find one you can talk about it on the Mailing list and open a bug
entry. (If you don't know the PharoLauncher you should take a look:
http://www.smalltalkhub.com/#!/~Pharo/PharoLauncher that is an easy
way to get latest image of Pharo all the time)
- Try to correct bugs on https://pharo.fogbugz.com/f/
You can use the filter to select only the things you know about
(filter: All (by projects) )
- You can help to improve Pharo. For example if you improve the About
text of Versionner you can create a bug entry and send a slice on
Pharo5Inbox with your improvement. If that's good enough The
Integrator will add it on future release of Pharo 5
- You can also create your own project like Yuriy and his
QualityAssistant but if you want to do that, PLEASE, ask on the
mailing list if someone don't do that already. That would be sad to
have 2 people working on the same thing without knowing.

On 2 May 2015 at 16:07, Sergio Fedi <[hidden email]> wrote:

> As a fairly experienced Smalltalk programmer but a very new user of Pharo,
>
> Where do you guys suggest me to start contributing?
>
> To be more specific, there are parts of the system I don't know, and
> practices and conventions of Pharo that I don't grasp yet, so it seems that
> work that can be done withour relying on that knowledge would be more
> suitable for me.
>
> I'm open to a pair programming session via Skype/Teamviewer or other medium.
>
> For example, I was contemplating on defining the About text for the
> Versionner in light of the recent discussions.
>

--
Cheers
Cyril Ferlicot

Ben Coman

Re: Where to start contributing

In reply to this post by Sergio Fedi

On Sat, May 2, 2015 at 10:07 PM, Sergio Fedi <[hidden email]> wrote:

As a fairly experienced Smalltalk programmer but a very new user of Pharo,

Where do you guys suggest me to start contributing?

To be more specific, there are parts of the system I don't know, and practices and conventions of Pharo that I don't grasp yet, so it seems that work that can be done without relying on that knowledge would be more suitable for me.

I'm open to a pair programming session via Skype/Teamviewer or other medium.

For example, I was contemplating on defining the About text for the Versionner in light of the recent discussions.

That sounds like a nice addition (though actually I don't know the convention off hand).

Also, more hands are always needed for reviewing "resolved" issues to avoid them languishing. Often issues might only get one reviewer when ideally there would be two reviewers.

This has a few advantages for you.

* There is a lot of old code in Pharo with varying conventions. The best place to learn Pharo's conventions is "new" code.

* It mitigates the "parts of the system I don't know" issue - since code changes are location specific.

* You learn about system parts is a goal directed fashion (which works best for me rather than just browsing)

cheers -ben

Sergio Fedi

Re: Where to start contributing

@Cyril

I tried to do what you suggested, but the amount of cases to resolve is huge, I'm quite lost on where to begin, and most of them I don't understand how to solve them

@Ben

How do I do that reviewing you suggest?

Which ones do you suggest I should begin reviewing?

If anyone else have more comments or suggestions on where and how I can contribute, please chime in.

CyrilFerlicot

Re: Where to start contributing

Marcus opened a discussion last time and the result is that he'll
maybe close all the bugs and ask to people to reopen only the one we
really want.
http://forum.world.st/Issue-tracker-what-about-old-issues-td4822552.html

On 4 May 2015 at 02:27, Sergio Fedi <[hidden email]> wrote:

> @Cyril
> I tried to do what you suggested, but the amount of cases to resolve is
> huge, I'm quite lost on where to begin, and most of them I don't understand
> how to solve them
>
> @Ben
> How do I do that reviewing you suggest?
> Which ones do you suggest I should begin reviewing?
> If anyone else have more comments or suggestions on where and how I can
> contribute, please chime in.
>

--
Cheers
Cyril Ferlicot

Sergio Fedi

Re: Where to start contributing

I saw that discussion, but I didn't know how I could (if I could) contribute to that problem.

Ben Coman

Re: Where to start contributing

In reply to this post by Sergio Fedi

On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 8:27 AM, Sergio Fedi <[hidden email]> wrote:

@Cyril
I tried to do what you suggested, but the amount of cases to resolve is huge, I'm quite lost on where to begin, and most of them I don't understand how to solve them

@Ben
Which ones do you suggest I should begin reviewing?

Any and all that turn up under the "Fixed To review" filter on Fogbugz, from the pull down menu on the <Cases> buttons.

How do I do that reviewing you suggest?

1. From the issue description, reproduce the original problem. If there is not sufficient information to do that, ask for clarificationon the issue. Sometimes the person who logs the issue already has a fix and so the desciption to reproduce is limited, but its good to pin down for historical purposes (I've hit some opaque ones tracking down introduced regressions before)

2. Filter on the Pharo5Inbox for the issue number then <Merge> the slice.

3. Report your opinion on the issue being fixed, or other problems introduced.

4. Over time as you feel comfortable, comment on the source code quality/conventions/etc...

cheers -ben

Sergio Fedi

Re: Where to start contributing

Great, thanks for the explanation Ben.

Now I know how to do that.

*bookmarking mail*

stepharo

Re: Where to start contributing

In reply to this post by Sergio Fedi

Hi sergio

start small. Here is what I did when I started to want to participate to
squeak.
Read the description of bugs or enhancement and check if what the people
are doing is making sense.
LIke that you will start to get a feel of some parts of the system.
Read the bugs report and try to reproduce them.
Then indeed we could do some skype sharing.

Stef

Le 2/5/15 16:07, Sergio Fedi a écrit :

> As a fairly experienced Smalltalk programmer but a very new user of
> Pharo,
>
> Where do you guys suggest me to start contributing?
>
> To be more specific, there are parts of the system I don't know, and
> practices and conventions of Pharo that I don't grasp yet, so it seems
> that work that can be done withour relying on that knowledge would be
> more suitable for me.
>
> I'm open to a pair programming session via Skype/Teamviewer or other
> medium.
>
> For example, I was contemplating on defining the About text for the
> Versionner in light of the recent discussions.
>

Sergio Fedi

Re: Where to start contributing

Thanks for the advice.

Seems a really safe and newbie-friendly task to:

1 - Review other people's fixes and comment on them

2 - Try to reproduce bugs, post them and maybe make a test case for it