Hi James and Sarthak, Thank you for the detailed guidance and warm welcome!
James, I’ll start by reviewing existing PRs and validating old Jira tickets to familiarize myself with the project. I’ll also explore areas for documentation and test coverage improvements. Your suggestions are very helpful! Sarthak, let’s connect and collaborate on these tasks together. We can divide work or brainstorm how to approach it. Let me know how you’d like to proceed. Thanks, Akash On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 10:01 PM Vijaysurya Mandala < mandalavijaysuryaopensou...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hey James, > > Thank you for sharing these "first-steps" to contribute to this > project. Although I wasn’t directly tagged in this email, I greatly > appreciate the steps you’ve outlined for understanding the codebase > and contributing meaningfully. > Your advice is incredibly helpful for someone like me who is eager to > contribute effectively. > > -Vijay > > > On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 4:20 AM James Dailey <jdai...@apache.org> wrote: > > > > Akash and Sarthak - thanks for your interest and welcome. > > > > Because Fineract is a large code base used in production at regulated > financial institutions, it is essential that new contributors start with > understanding the code base rather than trying to add new features. > > There is a tendency for devs to want to do the "next cool thing" when > really what is needed is more documentation, more test coverage, more > detailed tickets, more reviews of changes. > > > > As a first step, you can review the existing PRs that are coming in. Do > they make sense to you? Can you follow the logic? Are the details in the > Jira ticket sufficient? You might want to try that for a week or two or > five. > > Following project activity is a very important first step. You might > even have some clarifying questions that could help the project become > better. That is also a contribution. > > > > Secondly, look for areas that are not well covered. On many open source > projects, too many devs are writing too much code with too little > documentation. That is true here as well. Once you understand the > features and functions and the structure of the code, can you help with > some small piece of documentation? ... we need people digging into > specific areas that are in the code and documenting what is there. That > might also involve more test coverage in Cucumber (Gherkin files). > > > > Third, you might look at the really old jira tickets, and validate one > by one that the tickets are still needing to be fixed. We have hundreds of > old tickets that have creation dates before 2022 and I strongly suspect 90% > are no longer valid. This is tedious work, but is needed. Pick a ticket, > read it, determine if it seems real, put a comment that "yes, verified as > of github checkpoint xxxx-xxxx" that the issue still exists" or "no, > verified as of ... that the bug ticket is no longer valid". > > > > Generally, contributors should come with very modest aims at first. > This is a very complex project. > > > > James > > > > On Sun, Nov 24, 2024 at 3:30 AM Sarthak Deokar < > deokarsartha...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > >> Hi, > >> > >> I am also suffering the same issues hope we could connect and work > together > >> > >> Regards, > >> Sarthak Deokar > >> > >> On Sun, Nov 24, 2024, 13:08 Akash Nadar <akashnada...@gmail.com> wrote: > >>> > >>> Hi everyone, > >>> > >>> I’m Akash, a new contributor to Apache Fineract. I have experience > with Java, Spring Boot, and building REST APIs. I’ve successfully set up > the project locally, including database connections, and have explored the > Swagger documentation. > >>> > >>> I couldn’t find any "good first issues" or beginner-friendly tasks on > the GitHub Issues page. Could someone please suggest a task or guide me on > how I can get started with my first contribution? I’m particularly > interested in working on APIs or improving existing features. > >>> > >>> Looking forward to your guidance! > >>> > >>> Thanks and regards, > >>> Akash >
