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Fixing a bug in Google Chrome as a first-time contributor

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Re: Fixing a bug in Google Chrome as a first-time contributor

#11

Post by Quothling »

sd9 wrote: post #4
KolmogorovComp wrote: post #2

> Although the worklet was running on a worker thread, it didn't have a WorkerGlobalScope - it had a WorkletGlobalScope. It took me a while to see these were different, I thought it was a wrong copy-paste. Naming things is hard, but this is a bad convention. Always put the changing bits at the beginning preferably, or the end otherwise, but never in the middle, especially when it's subtle in a rather verbose name.

The changing bit is at the beginning, unless I misunderstand you. Worker and Worklet are primitives, you can't really split them up. You can't have a LetWorkGlobalScope and an ErWorkGlobalScope, so WorkerGlobalScope and WorkletGlobalScope is the best you can do. That said, I usually prefer the changing bit at the end. So something like GlobalScopeForWorker, GlobalScopeForWorklet. But then that's clunky, so we're back…

> That said, I usually prefer the changing bit at the end. So something like GlobalScopeForWorker, GlobalScopeForWorklet. But then that's clunky, so we're back at WorkerGlobalScope and WorkletGlobalScope again.

I've done this and it's always ended up biting me in the ass when I want to auto-complete and have 9 million "GlobalScope..." to chose from. Which is where "Work..." becomes handy.

Re: Fixing a bug in Google Chrome as a first-time contributor

#12

Post by oefrha »

KolmogorovComp wrote: post #2

> Although the worklet was running on a worker thread, it didn't have a WorkerGlobalScope - it had a WorkletGlobalScope. It took me a while to see these were different, I thought it was a wrong copy-paste. Naming things is hard, but this is a bad convention. Always put the changing bits at the beginning preferably, or the end otherwise, but never in the middle, especially when it's subtle in a rather verbose name.

This is no name confusion bug, the bug is whoever wrote the code simply didn’t consider enabling the functionality for worklets (maybe worklets weren’t even a thing when that particular piece of code came into existence), and the fix is to change WorkerGlobalScope to WorkerOrWorkletGlobalScope.

I don’t write code so that drive-by internet commenters looking at a random snippet always find it unmistakably clear in ten seconds, and I don’t expect anyone else to adhere to that standard.

Re: Fixing a bug in Google Chrome as a first-time contributor

#14

Post by mirekrusin »

matrss wrote: post #8
sd9 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The changing bit is at the beginning, unless I misunderstand you. Worker and Worklet are primitives, you can't really split them up. You can't have a LetWorkGlobalScope and an ErWorkGlobalScope, so WorkerGlobalScope and WorkletGlobalScope is the best you can do. That said, I usually prefer the changing bit at the end. So something like GlobalScopeForWorker, GlobalScopeForWorklet. But then that's clunky, so we're back…

> That said, I usually prefer the changing bit at the end. So something like GlobalScopeForWorker, GlobalScopeForWorklet. But then that's clunky, so we're back at WorkerGlobalScope and WorkletGlobalScope again. I wouldn't necessarily call "GlobalScopeForWorker" more clunky than "WorkerGlobalScope", just a bit longer, but also more descriptive. Using the languages namespacing features might also make it more obvious,…

„Of” is underused in programming. It’s short, can appear standalone, as prefix, infix and suffix and it’s generic enough that it works in most contexts for types, type functions, functions, constructors, mappings etc.

Re: Fixing a bug in Google Chrome as a first-time contributor

#15

Post by mrweasel »

Not that I really see away around it, given the size and feature set of Chrome, but those build requirements are just crazy. It kinda throws the open source and "everyone can contribute" model out the window, if you can't afford a pretty insane workstation then you're going to have a bad time.

I doubt that Firefox is better, I seem to remember that building Firefox and the VIA C3 processor years back as around half a day of compiling, but was also an extremely poorly choose CPU for the task.

Re: Fixing a bug in Google Chrome as a first-time contributor

#16

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mherrmann wrote: post #10

Congratulations! And thank you for the great write-up. I work with the Chromium code base a lot, and it can indeed be daunting. I use Sublime Text, which treats the code as plain text, apart from syntax highlighting. But it's also possible with at least VS Code to get some more intelligence, such as going to the definition or declaration of a function, etc. People who have now become interested in creating their own…

Reminds me of my early experience with larger-scale JS development (early single page apps or whatever they're called now); there were no good IDEs yet, no module / require system, no types or whatever. Sublime Text and fast global search were my go-to tools, and it gave me a newfound appreciation of consistent naming schemes and structures.

Not so much nowadays though, most of the time I use IDEA with Typescript and the like. And yet, I still feel like I lost something moving away from sublime. I've reinstalled and am trying it again lately.

Re: Fixing a bug in Google Chrome as a first-time contributor

#18

Post by creesch »

Interesting to read all of this. Bugs in more obscure areas being open for years is something I am pretty familiar with, although then on the Firefox side of things.

I personally never have been able to muster up the courage or energy to try and dive into the code base there, though. Part of that is simply because such a huge code base is daunting to delve into. But an even bigger stumbling block was always the prospect of having to deal with the entire process of submitting the fix and getting it approved. Certainly with Mozilla the interactions I have had on Bugzilla with various people there as well as in other places simply made me decide to work around the issues.

I am honestly surprised how relatively smooth the process seems to have been for the author, dealing with Chromium developers.

Re: Fixing a bug in Google Chrome as a first-time contributor

#19

Post by creesch »

mrweasel wrote: post #15

Not that I really see away around it, given the size and feature set of Chrome, but those build requirements are just crazy. It kinda throws the open source and "everyone can contribute" model out the window, if you can't afford a pretty insane workstation then you're going to have a bad time. I doubt that Firefox is better, I seem to remember that building Firefox and the VIA C3 processor years back as around half a…

> It kinda throws the how open source and "everyone can contribute" model out the window, if you can't afford a pretty insane workstation then you're going to have a bad time.

That, it also means you are going to spend a lot of time on it before you can even attempt to do anything.

Overall, there can be a pretty substantial amount of effort involved before you are even ready to make a PR of any kind. Then it remains to be seen if it is well received by the people who can approve it.

You mention Firefox, my dealings with various contributors and people at Mozilla over the years would make me very hesitant to even consider diving into the deep end. To be fair, I have had good interactions with various people as well. But a lot of communication also has been just outright difficult.

All of this also throws out the "if you don't like it, you can just fork it" mindset.

Re: Fixing a bug in Google Chrome as a first-time contributor

#20

Post by rrr_oh_man »

creesch wrote: post #18

Interesting to read all of this. Bugs in more obscure areas being open for years is something I am pretty familiar with, although then on the Firefox side of things. I personally never have been able to muster up the courage or energy to try and dive into the code base there, though. Part of that is simply because such a huge code base is daunting to delve into. But an even bigger stumbling block was always the prosp…

> Certainly with Mozilla the interactions I have had on Bugzilla with various people there as well as in other places simply made me decide to work around the issues.

Can you elaborate on your experience?

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