HOW A ”NOT THE GREATEST ENGINEER” BECAME A GO CONTRIBUTOR

Talk for Go Conference 2019 Spring.

Transcript

1. HOW A ”NOT THE GREATEST ENGINEER” BECAME A GO CONTRIBUTOR Yohei Takeda @yotakyotak
2. 2 Who is the target of this talk?
3. MY DREAM IS TO BE A CONTRIBUTOR! 3
4. BUT I’M NOT THAT GOOD... 4
5. DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO IT. 5
6. After my talk, you... ▸ Can grasp what to do to be a contributor! ▸ Get encouraged to start your action! ▸ Understand that anybody(requires a little english) can try! 6
7. What I found out after my challenge ▸ You don’t have to be the “greatest engineer” ▸ At least for Go! Can’t imagine? Let me share precisely, the steps I actually took! 7
8. 1. WHO AM I? My introduction 8
9. Yohei Takeda @yotakyotak Go engineer, team leader @ Media Do Sometimes Vue.js, AWS Began engineer career after graduating University, without CS background 9
10. 2. WHY DID I TRY TO CONTRIBUTE? 10
11. 11 ”CONTRIBUTOR” SOUNDS SOOOO COOL!! At my first job, almost nobody around me was a “contributor”.
12. 12 Came across a cool slide: https://kevin.burke.dev/slides/becoming-go-contri butor/#title-slide https://about.sourcegraph.com/go/gophercon-20 18-becoming-a-go-contributor
13. “ Small commits to start 13
15. 15 fmt package lacks example
16. 16 Editing source codes might be difficult, but I can add documents or examples. Why not give it a try?
17. 3. STEPS TO GET STARTED 17
18. https://golang.org/doc/contribute.html#contributor - And any editor you like! For me, VS Code - It might take 30 mins to go through Step 0-4 18
20. 4. HOW I FOUND MY ISSUE 20
21. START WITH FMT EXAMPLES! 21 Designed by yanalya / Freepik
25. IT’S NO LONGER AN ISSUE 25
26. I’LL FIND ONE BY MYSELF! 26
27. Condition of “easy to start” issue： https://github.com/golang/go/issues?utf8=%E2%9 C%93&q=+is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3ADo cumentation+label%3ANeedsFix+NOT+%22gola ng.org%2Fcl%22+ -> open issue, “Documentation”, “NeedsFix”, no PR yet. 27
28. 28 I’ll take this one!
29. 5. STEPS TO SUBMISSION 29
30. 30 Understand the issue
31. 31 Lacking document for compile & link
32. Least thing to do, add docs for: ▸ go compile -m ▸ go link -a, -buildid 32
33. THAT’S NOT IDEAL SOLUTION!
34. My decision Document all the flags provided for compile/link. I SHOULD SEEK FOR IDEAL SOLUTION. What I could have done Before starting to work on it, ask Go members if I’m on the wrong track. 34
35. START READING THE CODE 35
36. Simply, read, read and read ▸ Around 10 articles about build/compile/link ▸ Try commands with flags ▸ Get deeper understanding of Go! 36
37. 37 Nice HINT! from: https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/ src/cmd/compile/internal/gc/main.go
38. 38 Documented all lacking flags
39. https://golang.org/doc/contribute.html#sending_a _change_gerrit 2 ways to commit; Github & Gerrit( <- preferred!) 39
40. 40 DONE!!
41. BUT THERE’S STILL A LONG WAY TO GO...
42. 4 MORE PATCH SETS TO GO!
43. 6. DEAL WITH FEEDBACKS 43
44. 44 Polite feedback
45. Try to understand the feedback ▸ “flags related to debug info generated by the compiler, and flags related to debugging the compiler itself” ▸ I understand what it means, but difficult to judge for each flags… Don’t spend too much time!! 45
46. 46 Tell “I’m not confident”
47. Don’t be embarrassed! ▸ It’s important to be honest, especially when you communicate with somebody who don’t know how skilled you are. ▸ Assume you don’t have chance to talk with reviewers. You have to communicate on “comments”. Then you have to be precise. 47
48. NO REPLIES FOR SEVERAL WEEKS... I GUESS I SHOULD REMIND THEM! 48
49. 49 STARTED INVESTIGATION...
50. 50 DONE!
51. 51 After a while...
52. THIS IS NOT EASY 52
53. READ, FIX, AGAIN AND AGAIN 53
54. What I’ve done for the following 3 patches ▸ Repeat the basic steps. Read feedback, read source code, add some backgrounds if any. ▸ I’ve made some mistakes... miss commits, misunderstandings ▸ My job got busy, I couldn’t work on this for 3 months 54
57. FINALLY...!
59. 59 https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/CONTRIBUTORS
60. 60 Designed by jigsawstocker / Freepik
61. 7. SUMMARY 61
62. Not easy ▸ It took me about 20~30h. Studying + 4,5h per patch ▸ Not all english is easy. But it’s not face-to-face communication, take time. ▸ You might not fully understand the source codes. But sometimes you don’t have to. 62
63. What I should have done ▸ When you’re too busy to continue, you should say so. Someone else might work on it, and there’s always other issues for you to work on when you get free. ▸ When there’s anything unclear, ask before submitting patch. 63
64. But worth a challenge! ▸ You don’t have to be scared, embarrassed. Don’t just submit your source code, add precise comments, ask questions, share anything you have in your mind. ▸ Your process doesn’t have to be “perfect”. Start your journey to Go contributor! 64
65. Thank you! 65