Homework - Bugfix

Real learning in computing comes more from doing and less from studying. Debugging, figuring out how some software works and how it doesn’t, is an interactive process that develops basic engineering practices and, in the open source context, community engagement and collaboration.

Pick a Project

You can choose any project you like. The best to pick is something you already use, something with which you’re already familiar. If you can’t think of any projects to investigate off the top of your head, here’s a list of suggestions.

A little more focused, here is a list of open source javascript/html5 game engines and links to their bug trackers.

You might also find something neat over at bounty sites like:

Really, the sky is the limit here.

Note

For background, you might want to also check out the project on http://ohloh.net/. It can help you characterize what kind of community orbits around your choice.

Find a bug

A bug can be anything: an unintended side-effect in a low-level routine, a user-interface cleanup, a feature enhancement, grammatical errors or lack of clarity in the project’s documentation.

Broadly, you have two different options here. You can

  • Find a known bug (or feature enhancement) listed in the project’s bug tracker.
  • Find a bug yourself by using the software.

In the event of the second case, make sure you file the bug in the project’s tracker before proceeding.

OpenHatch.org

OpenHatch.org bills itself as an “Open source Involvement Engine.” It’s mission is explicitly to reach out to communities of developers just like the one in this very course, and make it trivial for new contributors to effectively cycle on upstream projects!

You can read more about OpenHatch and it’s vision here on their wiki

For this homework assignment, you should check out:

Use the Source, Luke

Once you’ve identified a bug that needs fixing, you’ll need to get ahold of the source. In most cases, the code for a project will be hosted on a forge and the process of forking and cloning the source will be straightforward. If you forget how to do this for github, you can refer to Homework - First Flight.

For whatever project you’ve chosen, you should ask that project’s community for help. Look for IRC channels and project mailing lists. You’ll be communicating with developers who have a lot on their plate so make sure to be polite and leave your ego at the door.

Find the code related to the bug; use whatever code navigation tools you’re more familiar with. The instructor’s favorite method is: grep -inr "some string" project_src/.

Fix the bug, this may require some thinking, and some more asking around.

Test your fix! Project maintainers hate nothing more than receiving a patch that breaks every other function of the project. Often, projects have built-in test suites. If yours does, run it!

Prepare your patch with descriptive commit messages. Follow the method for submitting patches recommended by your project and submit!

Make sure the project community can easily understand what you did and why you did it.

Make sure there is a reference in the tracked bug ticket to your patch (that is, if the project maintains a bug tracker).

The Deliverable

Write a blog post about this process and provide relevant links where possible to documentation.

  • A link to the patch(es) hosted somewhere on the web, usually forges provide the ability to link to changesets.
  • A link to any mailing list discussions archived on the web
  • Snippets of any relevant IRC conversations.

You will be graded on your post and the explanation of your process. Extra kudos (but not extra credit) for super epic patches.

An Afterthought (not required)

Once your patch has been accepted, mosey on over to http://ohloh.net.

  • Create an account
  • Find the project you patched
    • If it doesn’t exist, you can add it yourself
  • “Claim your position” as the author of the commit(s) you sent in to increase your rank among open source developers of the world!