Hi Joshua,
Post by j***@gmail.comI'd like to help out too, but don't quite know where to start, and,
because time is such a fleeting resource, I'd like to start off helping
with contributions that benefit the most people, probably also which
overlap with skills I have which others might not.
Thanks for the offer of help. It is welcome.
I think it is best to systematically work through closing the scheduled
milestones as this lowers technical debt. Closing out any one ticket is
a step in that direction. Here's the full list, ordered by milestone:
https://www.assembla.com/spaces/arhHGeUuSr4k70eJe4gwI3/tickets?tickets_report_id=1
Post by j***@gmail.comIf its not worth your time to point out, that's fine-- I'll probably go
through the bug list at some point and look for myself,
There is a list of "starter" tickets for first-time contributors. There
is an introduction and a link to the list here:
https://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/portaudio/TasksForNewContributors
Post by j***@gmail.combut, here are a
rough list of skills and experience I have, and if you can direct me
I was in my past a heavy perl user (and still am), and, I think around
2005 (?) I got about 70% of the way towards what I consider to be the
correct way to bridge the gap and have high performance callback
oriented perl Apis for PA. Now, I know that the language isn't as
popular as it once was, but if the community felt enough to convince me
that it would be useful, I could certainly do that.
Same thing for MATLAB. High quality (in terms of performance) bindings
for PA, allowing one to develop things using PA in that language.
I don't consider bindings to be a core part of the PA project. Probably
we should split out the existing bindings into separate projects.
At one stage I had aspirations to exert control over the bindings so
that they were kept consistent with the PA C API. I no longer believe
that is achievable or necessarily desirable.
So by all means develop a binding, and of course we'll support you here.
But contributing to the core would be preferable to me. It would
certainly help the most people.
Post by j***@gmail.comI think I'm decently strong at systems engineering, low level
optimization and performance, those sorts of things, so if there was
some high impact problem or are of the code base I could help out on,
that might be fun.
As far as I know there aren't any outstanding perf issues. There are
some missing perf-critical data converters that could use some love:
https://www.assembla.com/spaces/portaudio/tickets/35
Alternatively, I have a more ambitious project to replace the hand-coded
pa_converters.c with a script that generates them (this will allow
adding byte swapping converters as well). I would be happy to
collaborate on that.
Post by j***@gmail.comLinux is my primary platform, c and c++ are what I write most of the time.
Alan might have some Linux-specific tasks in mind. You could search the
tickets for Linux.
Post by j***@gmail.comI do have pretty strong release engineering experience, specifically
with svn.
That said, it doesn't have to be code, it could be build engineering
(documenting and realising our policy for ./configure, cmake, project
files etc. maybe removing scons(?)), documentation, setting up CI
infrastructure, etc. e.g. It would be great if Phil's pa_qa tests were
run regularly.
If we stick to the plan and decide to reorganise the svn repo to use
standard structure you could help with that.
Post by j***@gmail.comAlso have experience with windows, though I won't bother
keeping up with anything newer than windows 7, so maybe not that.
I'm still on Windows 7 myself.
If you were interested in a more extended project, there is the hot-plug
branch, which has been developed to a certain level but needs someone
with commitment to guiding it through (1) completion on a single
OS/hostAPI, (2) merging stubs for all other host APIs. Right now the PoC
is on Windows, which is why I mention it here.
Post by j***@gmail.comI could also see myself doing a solid port to iOS, though that would be
so 'un sexy' to me that I'd almost want someone else to sponsor it ;)
So yeah, to recap, and in short: what are the biggest pain points right
now? Anything I can help?
Here are a few other options off the top of my head:
- Pick a starter ticket and fix it
- Go looking at some of these repos and github and mine potential patches.
- Help me work through a ticket that maybe you can't do by yourself (and
probably I won't make time to do without some concrete social commitment
with another human being).
A lot of the ticketed development falls in to one of two categories:
(1) Stuff that is easy enough that I have left it for other people to
pick up.
(2) Stuff that is difficult enough that it needs either (a) full time
attention, or (b) concerted collaboration between multiple devs with a
commitment to complete the job.
Obviously my time is limited but I'm happy to work with someone on any
ticket if they can provide the impetus to see it through to completion.
Hope that helps,
Ross.
Post by j***@gmail.comJoshua
Also, "riot", I don't know you, but come on, don't be so lame like
that. When new people want to help out, that's not an invitation for
"stop energy". You might be right about all your criticisms, but
throwing stop energy at a new potential contributor doesn't help, and
you should know better :p ;)
Hello Riot,
Your criticisms are partially accurate. However, being snarky in the
direction of a potential contributor is not helpful.
If you feel that you patches are being ignored, please repost your
requests to the list. Reviewing and merging patches generally falls
to the individual module maintainers.
Post by RiotThe way it works here is you just send your patch to the mailing list
for review (the site's issue tracker claims to allow this but
doesn't)
That issue has been "fixed" (although not to my satisfaction). It is
possible to post a ticket without being added as a core developer on
https://www.assembla.com/spaces/portaudio/support/tickets
"New support request" button, top right.
Post by Riotand then you have a 30% chance of it being accepted in about two
months
Post by Riotand a 60% chance of it being ignored completely
As far as I can see you've posted the following patches. Please let
me know if I've missed any.
1. C++ const operator patch (merged)
2. CMake patch (not sure whether merged)
If it hasn't already been merged, the CMake patch needs to be merged
by someone who can review and test it. That would be Robert Bielik.
When changes are specific to a particular host API or other
component with a specific maintainer, it is possible that the
maintainer is unavailable and/or didn't see your request. In a few
cases there is no maintainer (e.g. C++ bindings) or the maintainer
hasn't been seen lately (e.g. WASAPI).
I understand that this is frustrating, but please understand that
reviewing and testing patches is necessary and important. We are
spread across multiple operating systems, so not everyone is
equipped or competent to test every contribution (in general I'd say
there's only one or two people who could review any particular
contribution).
Post by Riotand adout a 10% chance
of it never being received because the mailing list is being migrated
again without notice for the third time this year.
The mailing list was migrated for the first and only time last
month. At least one message did not get through. I believe that the
mailing list is working correctly now. Please repost if something
got dropped.
Post by RiotJust the same as all
other dinosauric svn-based cathedral projects really
Cheers,
Ross.
The way it works here is you just send your patch to the mailing list
for review (the site's issue tracker claims to allow this but doesn't)
and then you have a 30% chance of it being accepted in about two months
and a 60% chance of it being ignored completely and adout a 10% chance
of it never being received because the mailing list is being migrated
again without notice for the third time this year. Just the same as all
other dinosauric svn-based cathedral projects really
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