[SciPy-Dev] some guidelines about diving into open source

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 3:07 AM, Abraham Escalante <aeklant at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As someone who was recently in your shoes (three or four months ago), here
> are my pointers and suggestions:
>
> Before anything, you should get your development environment up and running.
> Fork scipy and clone it into a virtual environment (I use virtualenvwrapper)
> and make sure you are able to run the regression tests (i.e. `runtests.py`).
> You can find some information on setting up your environment here. I would
> pay special attention to `python runtests.py -v` and `python runtests.py
> --ipython`.
> Pick a topic where you feel you are most qualified to contribute (e.g. if
> you have some good statistics background, `scipy.stats` might be the best
> place to start). Getting acquainted with the code is also a good source of
> confidence.
> Do search for some of the issues labeled 'easy-fix' but give special
> consideration to the issues that have an ongoing discussion (even if they
> are not labeled as 'easy-fix'). It is usually easier to understand what
> needs to be done once the problem has been discussed. This also ensures that
> there are some people interested in the issue. Those people are valuable;
> you can learn from them.
> When you have found a problem that you understand and feel like you can
> contribute, just work on it, do a Pull Request (PR), and ask for feedback
> (via a comment in the discussion). The community is quite welcoming and they
> will let you know their point of view and guide you in the right direction.
>
> Here are some other things you might find useful:
>
> Development workflow (I review the part about writing commit messages almost
> every time I do a PR)
> My first PR (You can see the back and forth of feedback and improvements
> until it was ready to merge)
>
> If you find yourself stuck at some point, don't be afraid to ask questions,
> just make sure you have tried a few things so you can have a conversation
> about the problem you are facing. Most people (maybe everyone) here
> contributes voluntarily, which means they have a day job and so they
> appreciate when they can see someone who has taken the time to do his
> research, is able to ask thoughtful questions and give examples of what he
> is trying to convey.
>
> I hope this helps you get started. Welcome to the community.

Wow - what an excellent summary!  Thanks very much,

Matthew