29 ways to get started in open source

From YAPC::NA 2012, Madison, WI 6/13/2012

Transcript

1. 29 ways to get started in open source Andy Lester, http://petdance.com/ Wednesday, June 13, 12
2. Wednesday, June 13, 12
3. Rule 1 Wednesday, June 13, 12
4. You are worthy Wednesday, June 13, 12
5. What’s a good project to help out with? Wednesday, June 13, 12
6. Best project to help on: one you use. Wednesday, June 13, 12
7. 2nd best: one you want to use. Wednesday, June 13, 12
8. Listen & learn Wednesday, June 13, 12
9. Listen & learn • How does project work flow? • Who are leaders? Dictator or committee? • What’s being worked on? • What does the project value? Wednesday, June 13, 12
10. Listen & learn • Join a mailing list. • Read blogs of leaders. • Join IRC channel. • Attend a user group meeting. Wednesday, June 13, 12
11. Every project is different. Wednesday, June 13, 12
12. Wednesday, June 13, 12
13. Bug management Wednesday, June 13, 12
14. Report a bug. Wednesday, June 13, 12
15. Enhance a bug report. Wednesday, June 13, 12
16. A bug ticket is not a static document! Wednesday, June 13, 12
17. Enhance a bug report. • “I recreated this on Ubuntu with the 1.6 release per the ticket. On Mac OS X, it also failed, but with a different error message and with a stack trace.” • (And give the message and contents of the stack trace!) Wednesday, June 13, 12
18. Isolate a bug. Wednesday, June 13, 12
19. Isolate a bug. • “I was not able to recreate this under Firefox 11.0, but it does happen on Firefox 9.1 and Safari 2.4.” • If you have a theory, provide it. • “I remember reading that Firefox 11 was more forgiving in handling JavaScript that does X.” Wednesday, June 13, 12
20. Isolate a bug. • Be careful you are clear what is theory and guessing, and what is fact you’ve proven. • Avoid sweeping guesses. • Bad: “This happens with every template.” • Good: “I tried this on these seven templates: A, B, C, M, N, P and X”. Wednesday, June 13, 12
21. Write a test Wednesday, June 13, 12
22. Silence a compiler warning. Wednesday, June 13, 12
23. Close a ticket Wednesday, June 13, 12
24. Document an API: Examples! Wednesday, June 13, 12
25. Document a process Wednesday, June 13, 12
26. Fix the website Wednesday, June 13, 12
27. Translate something. Wednesday, June 13, 12
28. Tweet some news Wednesday, June 13, 12
29. Write a blog post Wednesday, June 13, 12
30. How did you use the project? Wednesday, June 13, 12
31. What worked? What didn’t? Wednesday, June 13, 12
32. Wednesday, June 13, 12
33. Go to a user group meeting Wednesday, June 13, 12
34. Test a beta or RC Wednesday, June 13, 12
35. Answer a question Wednesday, June 13, 12
36. Draw a logo Wednesday, June 13, 12
37. Welcome a newcomer Wednesday, June 13, 12
38. Talk at a user group Wednesday, June 13, 12
39. Do what needs to get done Wednesday, June 13, 12
40. Thank someone. Wednesday, June 13, 12
41. Thank you for listening. http://speakerdeck.com/u/petdance/ Wednesday, June 13, 12