Re: Helping on Git development

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 14, 2011, 18:29 UTC
Message-ID: <7vehzjugdz.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <CAH5451me+MDe34Boak=UDjH9T_WAnO6wxa6pW+JHOoGADoNfkQ@mail.gmail.com>

Andrew Ardill <andrew.ardill@gmail.com> writes:

Show 20 quoted lines

> On 14 September 2011 13:05, Eduardo D'Avila <erdavila@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have being using Git for some time now and I am very satisfied with it.
>> Now I'm considering giving back by helping on its development.
>> Is there any bug listing which I can check if there is some point I can help?
>> Any suggestions on other ways to help are also welcomed. :-)
>
> Hi Eduardo, as stated in the README,
>
> The messages titled "A note from the maintainer", "What's in git.git
> (stable)" and "What's cooking in git.git (topics)" and the discussion
> following them on the mailing list give a good reference for project
> status, development direction and remaining tasks.
>
> Additionally, I think the README should include something like
>
> If you are looking to contribute to the project, a good place to start
> is http://git-blame.blogspot.com/p/note-from-maintainer.html and in
> Documentation/howto/maintain-git.txt

I am moderately averse to hardcoding that URL that is guaranteed not to survive the maintainer change in our README file. The howto/maintain-git document mentions the periodical "A note from the maintainer" posting to the list that has the same text, which is a more appropriate reference.

As to contributing to the project, right now, I think we have enough people who want to write code and documentation for Git, but what we lack are bandwidth to (this is not meant to be an exhaustive list):

 - review the patches on the list and help perfecting them;

 - distilling random wishes from the end user community while winnowing
   chaffs that are unrealistic or do not fit well with the grand scheme of
   things, to come up with a concrete proposal and a patch series to move
   the discussions forward in a productive way;

 - "on boarding" new contributors, helping them to become a useful member
   of the community, teaching how to write a good bug report and how to
   sell a new feature (i.e. "the perfect patch");

 - dig list archives to point people at age-old discussions to non-issues
   that have long been resolved to squelch noise; and

 - remind original submitter, people who were involved in the discussion,
   and people who should have been involved but who weren't, of a worthy
   but stalled topics from time to time.

The first two need to come from more experienced folks whose judgement I can trust (iow, not a newbie task). Others are "project secretary" tasks that can be helped by anybody who is good at tracking things, perhaps except for the last one that needs a good taste when judging which topic is worthy of reminders.