Recently Pat Eyler blogged about the idea of a ruby bug day
(
)
I really like the idea because personally I’d like to get involved
with those projects, but of course going from 0 to 1 is the hardest
step, but a bug day is a great place for people to start.
So the question is:
Are there any people interested?
How should we do it?
From what I’ve seen of other projects the easiest way to set it up
is just with a mailing list and an IRC channel.
What GNOME project does is have a GNOME-LOVE day, its announced
ahead of time on a mailing list and on the day of the event
developers and junior programmers get together on IRC and
go through code. Senior developers could also help introduce
how to use any important tools (eg. valgrind) or help
troubleshoot any quirks in junior’s development environment.
An important point to keep in mind is that a bug day is just
as much about helping newbies as it is about closing bugs.
By taking the approach of setting aside a special day to
help build your developer base you end up getting a lot
bugs closed in the process anyway, win-win. The new
developers in the weeks and months between bug-days
hopefully continue going through source code on there
own, closing bugs and getting a better feel for the project.
Is anyone even remotely interested in such ideas?
I’d like to suggest we set-up a specific IRC channel
so during bug days we’d have a quiet place
to chat.
We could announce the days to be held here on ruby-talk,
but it shouldn’t be held more than once every 2 or 3 months.
Are there any people interested?
Sure! I generally feel to ‘noobish’ to bother the core members of
significant projects with questions on how I can start helping out.
Nothing can replace having questions answered in a live conversation
with those knowledgeable in the area (after doing research on your own
first of course). For instance, if one of my friends had not been an
experienced Linux user of many years, learning the tricks of the trade
whilst crossing over from Windows would have been much more difficult.
That’s why mailing lists are so cool! So yeah, big up!
How should we do it?
Looking at other successful community projects like Firefox, with its
daily (I think?) testing periods might be a good place to get ideas?
Anyway, just the opinion of one of those newbies that will be getting
helped out.
Are there any people interested?
Sure! I generally feel to ‘noobish’ to bother the core members of
significant projects with questions on how I can start helping out.
For instance, if one of my friends had not been an
experienced Linux user of many years, learning the tricks of the trade
They say there are three paths to learning
By reading about it yourself
By watching someone else
By listening to someone explain
And its said most people are type 2 or 3 learners.
How should we do it?
Looking at other successful community projects like Firefox, with its
daily (I think?) testing periods might be a good place to get ideas?
Well the problem is developers are really busy people.
Sometimes though they are willing to sacrifice a day and
set that time aside in order to help get newly interested
developers started.
It all depends on them.
You’d think that if it meant getting new developers excited about
your project and closing bugs at the same time that every
project would be clamboring to have a bi-monthly bug day.
But developers are really busy people, so its understandable
they may not have the time.
Maybe we should just outright ask them if they would be willing?
I really like the idea because personally I’d like to get involved
with those projects, but of course going from 0 to 1 is the hardest
step, but a bug day is a great place for people to start.
[…]
Any thoughts?
Does anyone know what the 5 outstanding verified defects and 17
uninspected and pending bugs for Ruby are at http://scan.coverity.com/ ?