From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from complex.crustytoothpaste.net (complex.crustytoothpaste.net [172.105.7.114]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6128D1E3772 for ; Sat, 19 Jul 2025 22:16:40 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=172.105.7.114 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1752963403; cv=none; b=K5HVVJzg4yNVHEDSWln9NclHg9Te7CZTF6as8qq4J0MEpz5TnQQznTLGrlPLWuQ6SoNzz/TleA1C6JUD+XwLeymXCJ2rcCJvRisBh5lgSWc/oC3vE/d7DwF3tv3vEiGhLPrwoFWbWcTz3cghlpeAjfbkWzAwjXCCWvIk0KnvGU0= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1752963403; c=relaxed/simple; bh=lIMlryyJZi1potddQelesrTDkXbLWRFPFKsv4U7ns3c=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=gBT6U1P4FEQMf5IR6Lq2nXvqv4yBjbvy/W6mlfeyUHgg01/DQH8UkWj2+FbSQrE7MbEFjoEDmaSHCj9A7VlfDLysr8gnlzOdQBGsWiPJLkntT6wRExa0tGtqOsWuT2o0GmEWuAZrUp11kmX8IGd8YPZwuK2ivEf8yfDfVSZkHSY= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=none (p=none dis=none) header.from=crustytoothpaste.net; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=crustytoothpaste.net; dkim=pass (3072-bit key) header.d=crustytoothpaste.net header.i=@crustytoothpaste.net header.b=Ewe2N257; arc=none smtp.client-ip=172.105.7.114 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=none (p=none dis=none) header.from=crustytoothpaste.net Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=crustytoothpaste.net Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (3072-bit key) header.d=crustytoothpaste.net header.i=@crustytoothpaste.net header.b="Ewe2N257" DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=crustytoothpaste.net; s=default; t=1752963394; bh=lIMlryyJZi1potddQelesrTDkXbLWRFPFKsv4U7ns3c=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:Content-Type: Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To:From:Reply-To:Subject:Date:To:CC: Resent-Date:Resent-From:Resent-To:Resent-Cc:In-Reply-To:References: Content-Type:Content-Disposition; b=Ewe2N257Aoe3ctXTwA7xKZedK5HUVb2bFUtpHXiQw2CuNMJRmKoMluHY+ACdm4K3L ghasO7NV+DZLeV514CLN+s62V2KwDQ26BTIBBZjFItu/L8QSFmSjpzihSSbchW/YbM TlWVO1YoYEiNWESMysYLMLadif19rcIngrLe+Yz1dPM0v9Dug6Sc44B+tc2sb65d8K L06ZJdYEMuzN1jaxUzT+KS54+i2TeH/1koMe4KEvh3i8CRoSHlYfs6rY4SJnByzZKm CVMBXuYukJ6WyRAL6KHclQJHL2HqRnfsDjtAbG+/LvOxv1XHo0zSI3ko1dv7gf7fVe Lxl/4kYe0tnKrrvPtv922KRmi6Benw2XB8Wl1DSDnM2sE63SzACjyssRt6jPgPO33L eu6DpPBdzGe497Pb1na43LTEMMNuXZwJhcHhPs/Oj5ikuPRy8rn1lBxFc6Dz+Z62rk kEXO8T6wv2r+bOmAM/f5NDnMcf/Vq8aqjOni25nBpY2tpjvRXlQ Received: from fruit.crustytoothpaste.net (unknown [IPv6:2607:f2c0:f00f:f901:cbf1:866b:6e23:73a5]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits) key-exchange ECDHE (prime256v1) server-signature ECDSA (prime256v1) server-digest SHA256) (No client certificate requested) by complex.crustytoothpaste.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 0D6B52007A; Sat, 19 Jul 2025 22:16:34 +0000 (UTC) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2025 22:16:32 +0000 From: "brian m. carlson" To: Eric Frederickson Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, Junio C Hamano Subject: Re: A Question from a Hopeful Future Contributor Message-ID: Mail-Followup-To: "brian m. carlson" , Eric Frederickson , git@vger.kernel.org, Junio C Hamano References: <87y0slp23s.fsf@arch.mail-host-address-is-not-set> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha512; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="Yu6LxLmg72csLTc4" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87y0slp23s.fsf@arch.mail-host-address-is-not-set> User-Agent: Mutt/2.2.13 (2024-03-09) --Yu6LxLmg72csLTc4 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 2025-07-18 at 22:26:31, Eric Frederickson wrote: > Hello everyone, Hi, > I hope that this message finds you well! I'm a software developer and pas= sionate > git user, and I'd like to try my hand at contributing to the project. I'm > sending this message in order to ask Junio and the team if there's anythi= ng that > would be particularly useful / appropriate for me to start looking into o= n that > front. (Reading through the last few "What's cooking" messages, I didn't = see > anything that jumped out at me as needing a new contributor, which is why= I'm > asking in a separate message instead of replying to one of those.) It's great to hear that you want to contribute. > (Some notes on my skills: working on docs or tests is always a favorite f= or me, > so things in those areas would be a great time. Also comfortable with low= -level > code, and any kind of scripting. Note too that academic background centers > around programming language design and parsing related stuff, so I've got= some > fluency in those areas that I could hopefully apply well to the project i= f ever > needed.) We have a Git FAQ because I answered questions on Stack Overflow and got tired of answering the same question again and again, so if you want to add any common problems there, that's of course welcome. (Now, to be clear, people did not stop asking those questions, but I had prepared text and a link to provide to them, and then people _knew_ that we had a FAQ and could refer to it.) If there's anything that you think is poorly documented and colleagues or people online have trouble with, we would absolutely love for that documentation to be improved. One thing I did to get started some years ago is to grep through the codebase for TODO statements and to pick something that seemed simple enough to do, and then send a patch. If there are small functions that you think would benefit from unit tests, we now have the framework for that that we lacked until recently. If you see things in the tests marked test_expect_failure, then that means that's a TODO test: it should pass, but it presently does not, and that can sometimes be a source of good things to work on. Some of those things are kind of big (especially a lot of the submodule TODOs), but sometimes they're small and approachable. Hopefully one of these options bears fruit for you, and please don't get discouraged if you wander into something that ends up being very complicated at first. We have lots of those in our codebase and with time, you'll also feel more confident in tackling those. --=20 brian m. carlson (they/them) Toronto, Ontario, CA --Yu6LxLmg72csLTc4 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.4.7 (GNU/Linux) iHUEABYKAB0WIQQILOaKnbxl+4PRw5F8DEliiIeigQUCaHwZQAAKCRB8DEliiIei gSvMAP47+8F90VM+5NGgm3W52PONiy3Tlk9s581oEQwTqtzltAD9ESfZ3Nc+ENpv vrOpAdciwaoX5Itd/TkwJc1ABDNSqw0= =v+rq -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Yu6LxLmg72csLTc4--