Michael Sullivan wrote: > On Sun, 2007-01-07 at 22:56 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: >> On Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:52:04 -0600 Michael Sullivan >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> | > I have been doing most recruits lately. There has always been a >> | > steady flow of good people wanting to become devs so that is not a >> | > problem. The biggest problem is having enough people interested in >> | > guiding new people and making sure they have good enough skills. >> | >> | I would like to help with coding/debugging packages for Gentoo. I >> | have some programming experience on a very small scale. I have an >> | Associates of Computer Science from a small community college, and >> | I've never had a job working for a software company. You spode of >> | "good enough skills"; I don't think I have good enough skills to help >> | with Gentoo, but I'd like to. Where should I start? >> >> https://bugs.gentoo.org/ >> > > I mean where do I start improving my skills? I've looked at source code > from Gentoo packages that was written in C (I know the basics of C) and > it made no sense to me. I found the experience quite overwhelming. Is > there a place I can start training myself to work on big projects? >
It once again depends on what you want to do. If you want to write docs, you probably need to learn GuideXML. If you want to fix broken ebuilds you will need to know bash pretty well. If you want to work on portage (trust me you don't, but IF you did) you'd want to know python fairly well. If you want to work on a specific set of applications, you will need to know about those applications. kde, pam, bsd, multimedia apps, etc...;each section has it's own set of moreys and 'how most applications work'. In general you need to know about Linux, how it works in a broad sense, and how to use it. You can learn some of the specifics along the way; Myself? I'm an annoying portage guy, but I also fix broken packages and occasionally participate in QA fixes and revbumps for things that aren't maintained by anyone else. I know some bash (not as much as I'd like) and I know C++ and python. I am not a guru of anything (not even portage) but I try and help out where I feel I can contribute meaningfully. -- [email protected] mailing list
