# Community involvement **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 6, 2007, 3:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/community-involvement/84622 "2007-02-06T15:52:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Tech_G)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 3:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/community-involvement/84622/1 "2007-02-06T15:52:27Z")
I’m getting to the point where I consider myself fairly comfortable with Ruby. I love the way the language works, I’ve used it to solve some fairly complex problems, and I’m working on developing several different websites with various people (some of which will see the light of day, some of which never will). Through all of this I’m learning more and more about Ruby, and especially about how great the community is. There is a HUGE group of people working on developing core libraries, willing to lend a hand through the list or the irc chat, and sprouting sub-projects of sub-projects of projects. What I want to know is: how do I become part of this core community? Right now I feel like I’m sitting on the outside, watching all this amazing development going on, and I have no idea how to get involved myself. I’d like to become part of a project and lend my time and as-yet meager abilities back to the community that’s helped me out so much, but I don’t have any idea where to start at. Should I try to become involved in a rubyforge project? Should I just hunt down some random project’s Trac and start making fixes and submitting them? Is there a place where people can go to recruit others for their projects? If there isn’t, should it become my project to develop one? Thanks in advance for any helpful replies 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Tech_G)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 4:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/community-involvement/84622/2 "2007-02-06T16:08:30Z")
On 2/6/07, Tech G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > What I want to know is: how do I become part of this core community? Right > now I feel like I’m sitting on the outside, watching all this amazing > development going on, and I have no idea how to get involved myself. I’d > like to become part of a project and lend my time and as-yet meager > abilities back to the community that’s helped me out so much, but I don’t > have any idea where to start at. Should I try to become involved in a > rubyforge project? Should I just hunt down some random project’s Trac and > start making fixes and submitting them? I wouldn’t say you should hunt down some “random” project to contribute to, but yeah, if there’s a particular Ruby-related project that really interests you, ask how you can help. If you’re a good writer, ask if you can help write some documentation for the project; I can almost guarantee with 100% accuracy that the answer to that question will be “Yes”. When you discover a bug, or a potential bug, in a library, don’t just send a terse message to the mailing list saying “It’s broken” – submit a _good_ bug report that tells how to reproduce the problem, providing sample code whenever possible. (Even better, submit a patch that fixes the problem). As the Ruby community has grown over the last year or so, there has been a large influx of people who are glad to take but not especially interested in giving back. It’s good to hear from someone like you who doesn’t fall into that group. > Is there a place where people can go to recruit others for their projects? There’s the “Project Openings” (a.k.a. Help Wanted) section at RubyForge, ``` https://rubyforge.org/people/ ``` although that’s not very widely used. ---
**Author:** ![Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Tech_G)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 4:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/community-involvement/84622/3 "2007-02-06T16:45:33Z")
Lyle J. wrote: > > and > > reproduce the problem, providing sample code whenever possible. (Even > > better, submit a patch that fixes the problem). > > As the Ruby community has grown over the last year or so, there has > been a large influx of people who are glad to take but not especially > interested in giving back. It’s good to hear from someone like you who > doesn’t fall into that group. Another, relatively simple simple, way is to try to keep an eye on ruby-talk and answer questions. If we can maintain the spirit of “returning the favor”, we’ll do well and keep the community healthy. – James B. “Every object obscures another object.” - Luis Bunuel ---
**Author:** ![Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Tech_G)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 5:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/community-involvement/84622/4 "2007-02-06T17:32:41Z")
On 2/6/07, Tech G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Should I try to become involved in a > rubyforge project? Should I just hunt down some random project’s Trac and > start making fixes and submitting them? Start with a project (on rubyforge or elsewhere) that you have used. Write tests for issues you find, or for issues on that project that don’t have tests. Write a fix that makes one of the failing tests pass. Submit. (At least, that worked for me.) -Alex ---
**Author:** ![Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@Tech\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Tech_G)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 7:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/community-involvement/84622/5 "2007-02-07T07:35:54Z")
Hi, In message “Re: Community involvement” on Tue, 6 Feb 2007 23:51:59 +0900, “Tech G.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes: |What I want to know is: how do I become part of this core community? You mean the core development of the Ruby interpreter, right? Subscribe ruby-core list. Read source code of the interpreter. Post ideas, opinions to the list. Submit patches to fix bugs. And (I think) you will find yourself participating the core development. ``` matz. ```