Maintaining a big open source project: lessons learned

About a year ago, I started to maintain Devise - one of the most popular Ruby Gems available. I had no knowledge of the code and a little experience with open source from a side project I developed myself.

Obviously, this was a very challenging task and I made a lot of mistakes in the process. The good thing is I learned a lot too.

In this talk, I will share with you some of the lessons I learned that I think can be valuable not only for open source but for our day-to-day work too.

Transcript

1. MAINTAINING A BIG OPEN SOURCE PROJECT: LESSONS LEARNED Leonardo Tegon - RailsConf 2019
6. twitter.com/tegonl github.com/tegon
8. WE GET PAYED BY CLIENTS TO DELIVER PROJECTS
9. SPARE TIME
10. THE PROJECTS BECAME INACTIVE
11. I WANTED TO HELP
12. I DIDN'T KNOW WHERE TO START
13. RUBYCONF BRASIL 2017
14. The future of the Ruby community is brilliant but it depends on us — Rafael França
16. NOVEMBER 2017
17. APRIL 2019
19. YOU'RE GOOD ENOUGH
20. WHERE DO I START?
21. ISSUE TRIAGE
22. TRIAGE The process of examining problems in order to decide which ones are the most serious and must be dealt with first
23. ISSUE TRIAGE Ensure that existing issues follow the recommendations from the project's contribution guide
24. CONTRIBUTING.MD
25. Include a title and a clear description, as much relevant information as possible and either a test case or a sample Rails app that replicates the issue — Devise's contribution guide
26. IT'S HARD TO FIX BUGS WITHOUT ENOUGH INFORMATION
27. TRY TO REPRODUCE THE ISSUE IN ISOLATION
30. Avoid opening new issues to ask questions[...]. Please go through the project wiki, documentation and source code first, or try to ask your question on Stack Overflow. — Devise's contribution guide
31. IT'S IMPORTANT TO ASK QUESTIONS
32. THE ISSUES TRACKER MAY NOT BE THE BEST PLACE
34. IT'S HARD TO ASK QUESTIONS
36. ISSUE TRIAGE IS A GREAT WAY TO START
37. https://words.steveklabnik.com/how-to-be-an-open-source-gardener
38. 15 MINUTES PER DAY
39. BUT I'M NOT A MAINTAINER!
42. THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO START
43. REVIEW PULL REQUESTS
44. ASK FOR TESTS
45. TEST THE SOLUTION
46. REPRODUCE AN ISSUE
47. SHARE YOUR SOLUTION
49. DOCUMENTATION
51. #1. OPEN SOURCE IS MORE THAN CODE
53. REPRODUCE THE ISSUE
54. REGRESSION
55. https://thoughtbot.com/blog/git-bisect
56. UNKNOWN ISSUES
57. DIVE INTO THE CODE
58. gem "pry"
59. https://www.jackkinsella.ie/articles/debugging-rails-with-pry-debugger
60. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/pry_debugging.html
61. https://medium.com/@urish/reading-your-frameworks-source-code-yes-you-can-do-it-2bdd8c9e947b
62. YOU FOUND THE CODE THAT'S CAUSING THE ISSUE
63. Once we read a piece of code for the very first time, we’re immersed in a long learning curve and a continuous cycle of questionings, doubts, and insights. — Rondy Sousa
64. "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?"
65. "THIS MAKES NO SENSE"
66. "THEY COULD HAVE DONE X INSTEAD"
73. WE HAVE A LIMITED VISION OF THE WORLD
76. ASK FOR ADVICE
78. #2. IT'S OK TO MAKE MISTAKES
79. WHAT SHOULD I HAVE DONE?
80. WHAT CAN I DO FROM NOW ON?
83. #3. DOCUMENT THE DECISIONS
85. GIT COMMIT MESSAGES
86. https://thoughtbot.com/blog/5-useful-tips-for-a-better-commit-message
87. https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/
89. #4. CODE IS EXPENSIVE
91. #5. BE NICE
94. RESPECT OTHER OPINIONS
95. ASK QUESTIONS
96. HAVE EMPATHY
100. https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3124-give-it-five-minutes
101. GIVE IT A DAY
104. GIVE IT A DAY
106. #6. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF
107. RELY ON AUTOMATED TOOLS
111. ASK FOR HELP
112. COMMUNITY
115. SHOW YOUR COMPANY WHY OSS IS IMPORTANT
116. WHY OSS IS IMPORTANT •Blog posts •Talks •Motivation •Professional development
117. OSS FRIDAYS
118. PAID EXTRA HOURS
120. YOU DON'T NEED TO CODE TO HELP
121. DOCUMENT THE DECISIONS
122. BE NICE
123. ASK FOR HELP
125. JOSÉ VALIM github.com/josevalim
126. RAFAEL FRANÇA github.com/rafaelfranca
127. FELIPE RENAN github.com/feliperenan
128. THANK YOU! twitter.com/tegonl github.com/tegon
129. REFERENCES •http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2014/05/tips-for-keeping-your-open-source-software-issues- tracker-tidy/ •https://words.steveklabnik.com/how-to-be-an-open-source-gardener •http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2018/06/the-anatomy-of-code-documentation/ •https://thoughtbot.com/blog/git-bisect •https://www.jackkinsella.ie/articles/debugging-rails-with-pry-debugger •https://thoughtbot.com/blog/5-useful-tips-for-a-better-commit-message •https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/
130. IMAGE CREDITS •Helena Lopes: https://unsplash.com/photos/1m2LQEonm2A •Pawel Janiak: https://unsplash.com/photos/WtRuYJ2EPMA •Alejandro Escamilla: https://unsplash.com/photos/BbQLHCpVUqA •Sharon McCutcheon: https://unsplash.com/photos/8lnbXtxFGZw •Alexis Brown: https://unsplash.com/photos/-Xv7k95vOFA •Angelina Kichukova: https://unsplash.com/photos/AjaOjlImLjM •GIFs: https://giphy.com/brooklynninenine