[swift-dev] Pathway to becoming an effective contributor

[Adrian Prantl]

> On Jun 20, 2017, at 12:37 PM, Halen Wooten via swift-dev <swift-dev at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to start a discussion about getting started with the
> Swift Compiler. The end goal is to see if there are ways we can help
> newcomers to the compiler get started and more quickly grow into a
> more effective contributor. The motivation is that I've had a
> surprising amount of trouble with my starter bug. Swift is amazing and
> I would love to contribute more regularly, but I also don't want to
> burden the core team.
> 
> I know that documentation on a huge project like this is a
> non-starter, but I wonder if we could have better information on the
> contribution process, which likely wouldn't change frequently. For
> example, I learned through a conference talk that Swift uses LLVM's
> lit testing. I couldn't find that in any of Swift's documentation. The
> docs explain how to run tests, but not how to write them. I would be
> happy to help out with documentation if we can decide on changes that
> would be useful.

All the infrastructure documentation on llvm.org is also valid for Swift.

For writing tests, check out the documentation on lit and FileCheck in particular:
http://llvm.org/docs/CommandGuide/lit.html
http://llvm.org/docs/CommandGuide/FileCheck.html

> 
> Also, after I'm able to get my starter bug merged, I have no idea
> where to go from there. I don't want to take another starter bug and
> deprive someone else of the opportunity to contribute (although maybe
> that's an unnecessary restriction I'm placing on myself), but I'm also
> not in a place where I could take on something much larger.

I don't think you should need to worry that any software project will ever run out of bugs :-)
But if you want to explore a particular area in more depth I would recommend searching bugs.swift.com for bug reports in the area that you are now familiar with after working through your starter bug.

-- adrian
> 
> The learning curve for a compiler is always going to be high, but does
> anyone have ideas on how we could assist newcomers with their first
> starter bug and then transitioning into something larger?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Halen
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