Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
I have recently started working on some open source project which I found relevant to my interests.
During this initiation period I came across some terminologies/stuff that I am not acquainted with, like configure, tool chain, binutils, etc. which I agree depends upon the type of project you are working on.
Now my question is, are there some bare requirements a developer should know before starting to work on the project?
Any help/reference will be greatly appreciated.
EDIT:
I have seen the GNU configure and build system in most of the projects I have seen.
If someone bothers about it "The GNU configure and build system" is a good place to start.
If it's a pre-existing one, you'll need to read their development docs (if any), learn how to use their version control system, and have the requisite tools for building the code and running it.
If you have all that, and the knowledge of the code/language, then you just need enthusiasm and some spare time :)
I wouldn't define them as bare requirements in the sense that it appears you are looking for. If you're a programmer you already have (hopefully!) the self-learning and problem solving characteristics that probably led you to be a programmer at first.
You'll never really know 'everything', and will likely learn something new everywhere you go. Heck, I got my current job never even hearing the words "Model-View-Controller", but picked up the concept in no time.
Your examples, toolchain and binutils, are not complex concepts and a simple wiki article should suffice.
I'd suggest downloading all the source code and making sure you can build it yourself as a first step.
Try and make sure you are familiar with the overall design and documentation before attempting to make any changes to ensure you don't inadvertently break anything on your first change!
The terminologies being used will probably depend on the technologies being used, for example an open source project written in C++ and running on Linux, will likely be very different to a C#/.NET application build to run on Windows.
It depends on how much involvement you will get into. If you just want to contribute with a feature, just get the tools to build the project, an editor to change the file and enough doc reading to find injection point for your feature. If you can find someone to help you getting started it will be fairly easy.
If you are to be committed to the project I recommend learning build tools, project history and aims. Also how the current authors try to solve the problems, their perspective on the project will help.
I would say being able to understand all of the architecture, tools and technology for whatever project you're working on is a must.
However, you then tried to make this a generic question that applied to any open source project. You kind of answered that for yourself didn't you?
which I agree depends upon the type of
project you are working on
I would think that depends entirely upon the project. Most well set up software projects will specify:
What language(s) they're written in
What developer environments (if any) they're set up for
What tools you need to build/compile/run the project
Test data with which to test the software
What are you working on? Are you sure they don't provide any of this information?
It depends on what you qualify as "work" on the project.
Most of the answers here suggest that you're coding (and your question hinted in that direction), but there are things that you can do to contribute to projects -- like testing and documentation -- that can be done without knowledge of how the program's written.
Now, for the coding aspect of it -- if it's a smaller project, I'd try to figure out what the other contributor's motivation and grand plans/goals for the project are. As with any team, coming in and trying to take things in a completely different direction than the others are planning, even if you have good intentions, can cause all sorts of problems.
(and then there's the technical advice that everyone else said ... source control, build system, project architecture, toolkits used, etc.)
It depends, as you say, on the project.
You'll have to know how to work in the language, you'll have to be familiar with the source code control system they use (usually subversion). You'll have to be able to build (usually Ant, often Maven).
Related
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 3 years ago.
Improve this question
I write hobby code from time to time. The thing is these tools, classes or tiny libraries of code end up in a flash stick with hopeless future! I would love to develop my projects further, and let other programmers trust them. If you were going to use something you found on the Internet, what is the most important thing you look for in that programming tool or small library? e.g. would you consider separate documentation a must?
Thanks for all contributers. I'll try my best to summarized what have been said. Feel free to modify the list. Corrections and additions are more that welcome :)
Start a blog and let others know you
are here.
Choose the most
suitable license. Possibly Open
Source licenses are the best for
hobby projects.
Put your project where people can
reach it. Consider google-code,
github, sourceforge or
other sites.
Use public version-control and
bug-tracker, So others can acquire the
latest source code of your project to
compile and use.
Write a decent documentation, beside
commenting your code clearly of
course. The documentation should
explain the purpose of the library
and provide at least simple examples.
Write tests if you are willing to provide real-world code.
If you are building a library, put a
lot of effort into designing a stable
interface.
Get a blog, release code through it. Explain why you wrote it, what problem it solves. And encourage others to improve upon it, keep the code posted as current as possible. If your tools are useful you will very quickly develop a following that 'trusts' your code.
Separate documentation isn't a must for small tools, but anything creeping into the framework world should probably have ample documentation and examples if you want any serious adoption from the community at large.
The most important thing is that the library is that it be open source, so I can read the code myself. If that is not possible then I insist on documentation.
Also consider using a project-hosting site (like google code or github).
Have a clear license with your code if you don't have one already
(preferably one which encourages modifying / improving / sharing your
code ...)
Have public version control and/or a public bug/issue tracker and/or a mailing list. There are a lot of good sites which offer these services for free.
Seperate documentation is not a deciding factor to me (if the code is well documented and the code quality is high).
Documentation explaining why you wrote it, when you started it, and it's intended function. Understanding where you're coming from will allow me to see future ideas as well as short coming you may not have seen.
Technical documentation explaining the API and some examples on how to implement it. Ideally, keep your documentation in the format that follows the language. For example C# tends to use the XML syntax for defining items. This allows me to feel at home when I'm reading it.
Clean code -- I can't stress this enough because far too many people write exceptionally ugly code. If you're code is ugly and/or unreadable, it may be easier for me to write it from scratch on my own. At the very least, make your code consistent. If I can't understand the code, I won't feel comfortable with it.
Historical records explaining your changes. Seeing how the project has grown allows me to plan better. It also allows people to see how you learn from your mistakes and get a sense of your skill level. Compared to a forum, you can get a feel for how fast things get fixed and then placed in to a new release.
Think long and hard on what kind of license you want there. Public domain? BSD? GPL? More restrictive?
A note on whether or not you mind being contacted and if there are any restrictions in this. For example, would you mind updates? Me explaining security holes? Or perhaps you might use a forum or wiki?
The ability for me to get your latest work and/or nightly builds. SVN or something. This is useful so I know if a bug I found is already fixed.
I think that documentation is a key point for your project.
The document must indicate:
what is the purpose of your library
what are the main features
a really short tutorial, to make it run in 5 minutes.
Many examples
I let people trust my code in a number of projects, but I urge people to make and maintain their own tests, and I make sure that I'm content with the unit tests.
Documentation is always good, but I'm very guilty of finding time to do as much as I would like. But having the author fairly contactable is helpful.
Posting it in an open source repository such as code.google.com or sourceforge.net is probably where to start...
Next to attract attention, document clearly and succintly the purpose of the library / application as outline in one of the answer above.
Finally, blogging and direct mail exchanges happen...
One reason documentation helps people trust your code, is that they know whether a given feature is something which you intended the code to do (and which you will, all else being equal, preserve in future versions of the code), or something that the current code just so happens to do, but which might change at any time as a side-effect of a bugfix or just a refactor.
Some people prefer find out what code really does by looking at it, and that's fine, but documentation tells you (a) what the code is supposed to do, and with any luck (b) what the next version of the code will do. If I want to use your code long-term, and take bugfix updates as you provide them, then I need to know that you've designed an interface that I can rely on and that you're willing to stick to. Documenting it is a strong hint that you're at least trying to do that.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
I find myself wanting to develop certain projects, but most of the time I lack motivation because I develop by myself.
What I usually do is look for similar existing projects, and ask the developers if they like to collaborate, but it's rather hard.
Is there a good place (a website maybe) to find people that are interested in the same project as me, and therefore would like to collaborate?
You code by yourself?
Release the code on one of the open-source foundries. (code.google.com. sf.net. bitbucket.org , github.com ,etc...)
Pick an easy license (x11/MIT is good, GPL2/3/AGPL3 if you like, among others.)
Write simple instructions on how to deploy, run, with a one-page tutorial.
Have a website where you write about the stuff you build, and the stuff you'd like to build.
Find people who need some help and help them. Don't over-extend yourself.
It takes time to build trust. Trust takes time.
Update
You wrote:
What I usually do is look for similar existing projects, and ask the developers if they like to collaborate, but it's rather hard.
If you see an open-source project out there, odds are the developers already like to collaborate. What they might not want to do is talk about grand schemes about how to turn the software into the next fifty billion-dollar behemoth. Generally, if you join the mailing list, introduce yourself ("Hi, I'm Joe, and I like to do X, and I like this software."), get and use the software, and provide feedback and constructive criticism, and demonstrate that you are following instructions or at least attempting to, and then, then, if you provide a patch (or a branch if github) it might be looked at and considered.
Do follow the project methodology. For example, if they use tests, submit tests with your patch, that sort of thing.
I tried myself to start an open source project and failed. I had published my idea in a forum and there were about 10 or 15 people who wanted to join the project. Actually there were very little activity ...
I think the main reason for the failure was that I hadn't developed anything before going public. It would have been really useful to have at least a prototype. Another thing is defining a (simple) development process.
If I would try it again, I would:
develop a prototype
document the code and the architecture in detail
write down tasks others could do
describe the development process
design a nice website and promote my work
publish the code at google code or something like that
Check out the offerings at github.com. If you can use git, I often find some cool projects on there, and you can always fork the repository to help out.
First, you should register your project on an Open Source Forge. There is a comparison list on Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_software_hosting_facilities
On certain forges, there is a way to ask for help. I know that SourceForge does: https://sourceforge.net/people/
I recommend that you read Karl Fogel's excellent and complete book on the subject : Producing Open Source Software. It is freely available online or in print from Amazon.
If you already have some code somewhere online, you could put an ad for your project on Stack Overflow's Open Source Advertising.
Quote from the link:
It must be an advertisement soliciting the participation and
contribution of programmers writing actual source code. This is not
intended as a general purpose ad for consumer products which just
happen to be open source. It's for finding programmers who will help
contribute code or other programmery things (documentation, code
review, bug fixes, etc.).
Openhatch
is the best place I have found to look for open source projects
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 9 years ago.
Improve this question
I want to ask about the different techniques they used to remember various programming techniques. We go through various books and various online tips and tutorials we also get so many ideas from the code written by somebody else.
Now all these inputs are memorized or stored in some format so that it can be found easily when referred. Absence of such storage may result in rewriting the code or reinventing the wheel.
I use to create one Working folder where I keep all my trial code but sometime after few days / months since the code is not tagged or named properly its difficult to find it out again.
For Perl, I have a module I call staging.pm, and use staging; is a pragma in my code which allows me to use experimental, not fully developed code in my development. This developmental code will be placed in a branch called "staging" off of the user library directory. The main thing that the module does is put my staging directory at the head of #INC. Once my code is mature--if it ever is--it will be moved into my user lib directory.
As for scripts, they can be run from wherever they are and I use a directory named test off of the bin directory.
So that's kind of my approach. I don't know how useful that is for you.
It's like learning any other language or learning any other technique. When you read a book and you find it interesting you start associating what you are reading with real life situations and problems that you might have had before which the new learnt stuff will solve for you.
You might, after a couple of days or so forget what you have learned, untill you stumble upon the problem which you related to when reading the book or looking at the lecture. This specific type of memory is called something like association memory technique.
There are a lot of other different techniques to remember things by but a lot of them come down to relationships with other parts of what you already know.
Another example is Math which is something you force your brain to understand but once you quit using it on a daily basis you will slowly degenerate the math-genious-cells.
Programming for me at least is just another way to express myself and when i learn new features it's just a new way to express things that might not have been easy to do before.
Edit
I might have missunderstood the question.. did i?
Well, for me, when I am trying to learn, I focus on learning the approach to solve the program, rather than a technique. That is important to me. Also, with regular day to day programming some techniques become ingrained.
The other thing I do is to maintain a notebook with my notes in it, code snippets, comments, shortcuts I have learnt over the years. This helps too.
Recently I have taken to maintaining my notes in Evernote, this makes is easy to search for and tag.
For web, I use Delicious + Firefox plugin to store what I already read.
When looking for a solution to something I can't solve, I got used to ask / search here.
And for my own solutions, I try to create reusable components and remember in which project I solved what and eventually get back to it later when I need it.
Whenever you study one programming technique like java you always map the corresponding things with C++ and perl.Java and C++ remain same in more concepts.And better you store your working folder in your mails so that whenever you need you can download and have it.
You could try a program like Surfulater. I don't know how well it works with code samples, but I do know that the developer was (is still?) active on the Joel on Software forums, so I'm sure he could be contacted with any specific questions.
If you use Windows, you can use Google Desktop to index part of your harddrive, including your program snippets.
If you can recall just some of it, Google will find it.
(Spotlight does the same automatically on a Mac)
On Mac OS X, TextMate provides a near perfect solution to this problem. TextMate is a programming editor that offers support for hundreds of programming languages and is customizable via the bundle editor. Through the bundle editor, you can add any snippet of code that you may want to memorize, and appropriately categorize it under its respective language. You can also assign hot-keys or character sequences to invoke a snippet and copy it to your current editing context.
I believe that Notepad++ is a similar tool for Windows, but I am unsure if it is as customizable as TextMate.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 9 years ago.
Improve this question
I've always worked in small companies, mostly doing small websites, and they all sucked in project management.
That means I have no experience whatsoever (even though I learned a little bit studying on my own) about the best practices and tools when developing a project.
Currently I'm unemployed to finish college and I decided to take a small PHP project mostly to learn both the language and project management.
It's just an idea I had for a website, I don't need to get money from it and it is not big, so I'm not concerned with deadlines or business plan, or a main goal. The main goal is to learn the technical stuff.
The only thing I'm caring about is doing it right, you know, the best practices in PHP, server setup, security, the tools for the job.
I'm not asking for a complete rundown on any points, just things like
Remember to always sanitize user input
Use this tool to manage version
Remember to set this apache option
Here's a good link on how to organize your files
Things like these will be already of great help!
Thanks
Non language specific:
Devise an error handling strategy early. What will you do when error conditions occur, will you log errors, how? where? What information will you log? Will you throw exceptions, return error codes?
Assume that your website is succesful, people start using it, then it breaks how quickly can you figure out what went wrong? Consider your whole error strategy from that perspective, not just from what happens while you developing and you're in control.
Some things that helped me a lot (in no particular order)
Version control (SVN in my case)
issue-tracker/wiki (e.g. Trac)
if you are writing markup: some kind of tidy
... and a validator
if you are writing code: a lint tool for your specific language
TODO-list app (for small TODOs)
a cheap VPS host to test things (I also use mine to host SVN and Trac)
There's a good question already answered about bug tracking and version control for single developers.
As for PHP style, I usually like to follow the Zend Framework guidelines. For deployment advice, you might want to head over to ServerFault.
Here's some answers to the project management / best practices side of your question:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/601759/what-professional-standards-do-you-maintain-in-a-side-pet-project
Start off by choosing a framework you're comfortable with. I would recommend Code Igniter, CakePHP or Zend Framework. It will help(force) you with a basic organization of your code and files. All these frameworks has dedicated forums with passionate developers.
From the project management angle I would recommend you to set goals and milestones. It will help you get things done even though you're learning. Set target of that you should accomplish for this month, this week and today. Small and easy targets like "create signup form" or "set homepage set". It feel so good checking those off. There is a lot of tools to use for this, like Backpack or Basecamp (free versions) or Things (mac application).
Be sure to use PHP5 and not copy ugly PHP4 code.
For project management software, check out DotProject (http://www.dotproject.net/).
About PMS (Project Management Software), you can take a look at
[http://www.axosoft.com][1].
This compagny edits OnTime, a very nice PMS.
Moreover, this software is TOTALLY free for a single user !
This software provides full support of SCRUM development method, for me one of the best !
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
I'm currently studying computer science and looking for a good way to practice and hone my programming skills. Contributing to an open source project seems like a natural way to do this to me. I currently know Java, Python, and some C, but wanted to open this up to any established language.
In particular, I'm looking for a project that's fairly active and has a lot of work for less experienced coders.
A better known project such as Firefox might have the advantage of being more recognizable on a resume, but perhaps one could have a larger impact on a smaller project. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks in advance =) -Matt
A popular one to start on if you know C is GNOME - www.gnome.org
Another great thing to do is look for projects that need help by checking out the Help Wanted listings at Sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/people/
The Python website also has a Volunteer Opportunities page:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/VolunteerOpportunities
A good way to contribute also is to look at the websites and mailing lists of open source software you use on a regular basis and ask if they need help, or just browse through their bug trackers to see what you can help with. This would probably be more interesting for you as you'll probably be able to make more meaningful contributions quicker with an existing knowledge of the software.
Good luck!
First, it has to be something that you are interested in and will enjoy working on. Otherwise it may become a chore or you may not contribute as much as you might otherwise.
Second, I'd make sure the project is active and has people working on it who you can learn from (by seeing what they've done and any changes they might make to your code once you check it in and they review it).
Finally, if you have any idea what you might want to do when you look for employment as a developer, then try to find something related to that area of programming, a tool that is used by developers in that field for example, as that will help you learn about the problem domain, as well as how to program, which help improve your cv/resume.
Whichever sounds fun to do, that's a rule of thumb for side projects for me. I'd suggest you start your own by the way, this is always more exciting and can teach you "get the things done" skill.
I prefer contributing to an open-source project already actove. Depending on what you want you will find games, databases..anything you's think about surely needs your contribution.
My really first contribution was to a game that used opengl ...space stariods i think, it was more like an optimization, or bug fix, i dont really remember.
I've done a plugin for GAIM (now known as Pidgin).. but never get to publish it as it changed name and api structure. It should have display the currently played song in the status-bar..with lots of configure options. Never finished it though.
Another thing was a 'echo' plugin for XMMS, but i found some bugs, it crashed easily and random (during development phase) ..and it was no longer maintained in the moment i've started developing, so left it in the dark also:) This one i liked a lot.. lots of cool and weird sound effects.
They were all cool as they all used different structures, and already established rules for coding, and commenting. Lots of thing to learn like this instead of starting my own project which wouldn't change my programming skills in any way:)
jHeidi is a program I like to use, but which is a bit buggy and could do with some development. It's written in Java.
There's a clear roadmap: It's following the more advanced development of its sister project HeidiSQL.