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The CPAN Pull Request Challenge

blogs.perl.org

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Re: The CPAN Pull Request Challenge

#31

Post by steamer25 »

wenderen wrote: post #30

I'm interested, but I don't know Perl. Is knowing Perl a hard prerequisite?

From the article: "You don't have to be an experienced Perl programmer, CPAN author, or githubber. The goal is to help others, possibly learn something, and hopefully have a bit of fun."

It might be possible to help with e.g., documentation (which could also be taken as an opportunity to learn just enough Perl to read less-documented code).

Re: The CPAN Pull Request Challenge

#34

Post by chromatic »

wenderen wrote: post #30

I'm interested, but I don't know Perl. Is knowing Perl a hard prerequisite?

I wrote a brief introduction to Perl from philosophy to pragmatic efficacy. It's available free online:

http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl_2014/

It works best with at least six months practical experience in any programming language.

Re: The CPAN Pull Request Challenge

#36

Post by emeraldd »

username223 wrote: post #22
emeraldd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still amazed at the number of developers who have a block around filing bugs or send out pull requests for the tools/libraries they use.

I'm not. Especially on larger projects, new contributors usually face something between indifference and hostility. After spending weeks in mailing list battles trying to contribute to a few projects, many people conclude it's not worth their time.

That may be part of it, I don't usually worry with mailing lists. My general approach is to file a bug in the appropriate bug tracker documenting the issue I'm dealing with then if/when possible provide a patch for the problem.

* I'm a coder not a politician ;)

Re: The CPAN Pull Request Challenge

#37

Post by ASUmusicMAN »

What a fantastic idea. I think this will really speak to those of us that may need a little nudge before feeling comfortable. I've dusted off my PAUSE ID and signed up.

Does anyone know of any other langs/communities that have tried something like this? This seems like a great idea to learn and contribute.

Re: The CPAN Pull Request Challenge

#38

Post by sanderjd »

emeraldd wrote: post #19
perlgeek wrote: post #14

I'm in. Some years ago I tried to motivate people to contribute to Perl 6, and found that while many had some lingering interest in doing so, they needed some steering. This was hard for me to do, because usually in Open Source communities, you aren't supposed to tell people what to do; they are free to chose the occupation after all. But I found that it worked very well. So I think the CPAN Pull Request Challenge is…

I'm still amazed at the number of developers who have a block around filing bugs or send out pull requests for the tools/libraries they use.

It is a good deal of work to put together a merge-worthy pull request, and doing so is no guarantee of its inclusion, or even consideration. Just as an anecdote, I find it increasingly hard to justify the time to turn monkey-patches we've made to Rails (and its accompanying libraries) into pull requests and maintain them against changes upstream, when they often languish without comment from anyone with commit bit. I don't believe project maintainers have any sort of duty to keep on top of random pull requests, but it's pretty easy to lose the motivation to contribute.

Re: The CPAN Pull Request Challenge

#39

Post by wenderen »

chromatic wrote: post #34
wenderen wrote: post #30

I'm interested, but I don't know Perl. Is knowing Perl a hard prerequisite?

I wrote a brief introduction to Perl from philosophy to pragmatic efficacy. It's available free online: http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl_2014/ It works best with at least six months practical experience in any programming language.

I'm going through it right now. Looks very useful, thanks for writing.
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