Need any assistance?
Mark Woodward
I asked a while back on comp.lang.ruby regarding how to get involved
in the Ruby community and Austin Z suggested I should join a project
like PDF::Writer (which he had just handed over to you
grasshopper ;-)).
I'm no Ruby guru, but would definitely like to help out if I could.
I'd like to contribute code, but would be more than happy writing
documentation/ testing.
All 3 of the proposals you've put forward sound great, and I'd love to
help out.
cheers,
--
Mark
Gregory Brown
On Mar 24, 7:10 pm, Mark Woodward <markonli...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Greg,
>
> I asked a while back on comp.lang.ruby regarding how to get involved
> in the Ruby community and Austin Z suggested I should join a project
> like PDF::Writer (which he had just handed over to you
> grasshopper ;-)).
>
> I'm no Ruby guru, but would definitely like to help out if I could.
> I'd like to contribute code, but would be more than happy writing
> documentation/ testing.
have substantial experience with Ruby or the PDF format.
This may be even more true for Prawn, my proposed PDF::Writer-killer,
since it'll require skills in Ruby performance tuning and strong API
design skills. (We will try to avoid many of the pitfalls of
PDF::Writer, so that means we need to use it as an example of what not
to do in many cases, unfortunately)
As far as the Ruby Mendicant project in general goes, I'm sure I'll be
looking for help once a project is selected and I've broken ground on
it a bit, but at first, I won't be able to coordinate working with
others who aren't already knee deep in the project.
Keep an eye out, I'm sure there will be places to help out in the
future. If I do end up building Prawn, we'll need to work on an
experimental version of Ruport that uses it as a backend. There could
be lots of potential ways to help out there....
If I do the Ruby 1.9 compatibility thing, I'm not sure how I'd work
out having people help me, and documentation work might be a bit
individual.
I guess what I'm saying is that to get involved in the Ruby community,
you don't need to be involved with something 'special' such as Ruby
Mendicant. You can just go to RubyForge and look for a project that
interests you, and fix problems where you see them :)
This project isn't meant to be a replacement for that, as it's still
the bulk of how open source work gets done: Use free software that
interests you. See a hole, fill it in. Rinse and repeat. :)
-greg
Mark Woodward
On Mar 26, 4:28 am, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 24, 7:10 pm, Mark Woodward <markonli...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Honestly, PDF::Writer isn't a great project to start with if you don't
> have substantial experience with Ruby or the PDF format.
>
> As far as the Ruby Mendicant project in general goes, I'm sure I'll be
> looking for help once a project is selected and I've broken ground on
> it a bit, but at first, I won't be able to coordinate working with
> others who aren't already knee deep in the project.
>
> Keep an eye out, I'm sure there will be places to help out in the
> future. If I do end up building Prawn, we'll need to work on an
> experimental version of Ruport that uses it as a backend. There could
> be lots of potential ways to help out there....
> I guess what I'm saying is that to get involved in the Ruby community,
> you don't need to be involved with something 'special' such as Ruby
> Mendicant. You can just go to RubyForge and look for a project that
> interests you, and fix problems where you see them :)
>
> This project isn't meant to be a replacement for that, as it's still
> the bulk of how open source work gets done: Use free software that
> interests you. See a hole, fill it in. Rinse and repeat. :)
Having just finished Uni, I'm looking for something to do!
Good luck with the whole endeavour.
>
> -greg
cheers,
--
Mark
Gregory Brown
> I'll go take a look.
> Having just finished Uni, I'm looking for something to do!
I think Google Summer of Code is open to people who have taken classes
in the spring semester, even if they graduated.
May be worth taking a look at.
-greg
Peter Cooper
Doing work in certain areas of the Rubysphere can be a pretty
thankless task. It seems, perhaps, as if people like Mark who want to
get involved but not necessarily be totally ignored (or, worse, work
on something that's not really used anymore) could be motivated a lot
by knowing where their efforts would be best applied.
Perhaps this is something I could try to sum up in a Ruby Inside post
and/or likewise, you on O'Reilly Ruby :) I think there are probably
quite a few projects that would be very receptive to newcomers,
whereas there are other projects where newcomers would probably not be
welcomed (due to the amount of acclimatization).
- Peter Cooper
http://www.rubyinside.com/
Gregory Brown
> Perhaps this is something I could try to sum up in a Ruby Inside post
> and/or likewise, you on O'Reilly Ruby :) I think there are probably
> quite a few projects that would be very receptive to newcomers,
> whereas there are other projects where newcomers would probably not be
> welcomed (due to the amount of acclimatization).
This is a great idea. I wasn't trying to be cold to new, enthusiastic
folks, just honestly saying that something like Ruby Mendicant is a by
nature a bit of an intense experience, and probably not the best intro
to Ruby. :)
If you'd like to write about this Peter, a great place for beginners
is the Ruby Mentor project.
http://rubymentor.rubyforge.org/
I'm currently teaching several students through this (and sadly, am
probably over capacity), but this pairs new Rubyists up with
experienced folks. This has been quite rewarding as all the people
I'm working with are working on their own projects that are pretty
interesting.
My best advice is that it's not a great idea to start your own project
with the expectation of it being generally useful if you're new to
this stuff, but that it's the best way to get your feet wet. Hack on
a problem that is interesting to you, preferably one where you can
make use of some common libraries and tools. When you run into
problems with those libraries and tools, fix them.
It might be interesting to put out a call to projects that are looking
for extra developers, and are open to less experienced people. I'm
sure there are tons of places where patches with a reasonably low
barrier to entry exist, and I think it'd be great to pair folks up
with these projects.
-greg
Mark Woodward
On Mar 26, 4:49 pm, Peter Cooper <pcoo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This isn't really related to your project, Greg, but..
>
> Doing work in certain areas of the Rubysphere can be a pretty
> thankless task. It seems, perhaps, as if people like Mark who want to
> get involved but not necessarily be totally ignored
> (or, worse, work
> on something that's not really used anymore) could be motivated a lot
> by knowing where their efforts would be best applied.
>
> Perhaps this is something I could try to sum up in a Ruby Inside post
> and/or likewise, you on O'Reilly Ruby :) I think there are probably
> quite a few projects that would be very receptive to newcomers,
> whereas there are other projects where newcomers would probably not be
> welcomed (due to the amount of acclimatization).
one out there looking to contribute in some [small] way. Probably best
if you do it so Greg can get on with Ruby Mendicant! :)
It would be good if you could go to RubyForge and projects were
labelled as "contributors welcome", "experienced contributors
welcome", "currently not hiring" or similar. So I could run down the
list of projects and say "that one welcomes newbies", "that one
doesn't want new contributors", "that one only wants experienced
developers", "newbie", "newbie", "no", "no", "experienced" .... etc.
Actually, I just noticed there's a 'Project Openings' tab on the
RubyForge homepage. Looks a little baron though.
>
> - Peter Cooperhttp://www.rubyinside.com/
cheers,
--
Mark
Gregory Brown
> Actually, I just noticed there's a 'Project Openings' tab on the
> RubyForge homepage. Looks a little baron though.
Yeah, people don't really use that feature. Best bet is just to shoot
an email out to RubyTalk
asking if anyone is looking for volunteers.
-greg