[swift-dev] Pathway to becoming an effective contributor

[Natthan Leong]

> 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.

Hi,

As someone who also recently started contributing, I was surprised to discover
how much computing power was needed to build Swift. My first few build attempts
on a mid-2014 rMBP took more than an hour with 100% CPU utilization which is
unsustainable for future participation.

Contributors with commit access granted can make use of computing resources made
available through Swift's Continuous Integration system. In the meantime, I'm
looking at cloud offerings to alleviate my building and testing time.

I just wished I knew this earlier. Hopefully, someone else can offer a better
solution to this problem. (No, I do not plan to spend money getting a Mac Pro :)

>
> 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.
>

Personally, I do some code reading while waiting for a starter bug with which I
am willing to work on, e.g. the hackers at OpenBSD are having a daily code read
on the #openbsd-daily IRC channel
(https://blog.tintagel.pl/2017/06/09/openbsd-daily.html).
They have found bugs and submitted patches with this approach
(https://mastodon.social/@mulander/9450485).

I am unable to provide guidance on how to take on something much larger atm.

Cheers,

Nate
github.com/contraultra
mastodon.social/@contraultra