Hi Felix, I'd say 2 of the best tools i found when i was first trying to get into the codebase were google and the jabber room. Google indexs reams of useful stuff on programming, solved many a wtf? type of moment for me, and the jabber room has proved invaluable to me as a place where when I'm still stuck someone with more knowledge will point me in the right direction again. Sometimes its just a quick point on how to do it,sometimes its a more detailed explanation, its pretty much always helpful though. On the productivity front,
a) find a task that the end result of will be useful to you.
- Working on something that will actually be a positive impact on your workflow in the software, or allow you to do something you otherwise cant is a great motivator. Bugfixing is also good as its always satisfying to take something that was reproducably broken and fix it.
b) tell us all what your doing
- I find that when I've discussed stuff with folks in jabber that them making suggestions on stuff, and asking me how its coming along helps me stay motivated. Bulias great at this, he tends to have great suggestions and encourages you to polish stuff with the same attention to detail he puts to his code.
c) Set a goal, make a list, and break it down
- If its anything more than a really basic task it always helps me to sit down and make a list of the aim, and whats required to achieve it. I tend to do this in my page on the wiki, breaking each of the requirements down into bitesize chunks that are achievable in a reasonable amount of coding time. (I generally aim for < a couple of evenings) As you make progress mark em DONE. if you hit difficulty, add whats giving you trouble to the list, I find trying to describe it in a concise manner often helps me to see what the problem actually is, and it feels good when you've fixed it to be able to stamp done on it. Having a list of whats left lets you see theres an end in sight too which is always nice. :)
d) use the software
- this is good from an eating dogfood point of view, but its also just plain satisfying from a "I made this" perspective. After about a year of coding i found I hadnt actually used IS for anything much in a while, I didnt touch the code for about a week but spent the time playing with it instead and actually generating some art. It was quite nice to just play with it and remember why I was contributing in the first place.
anyhow, essay over, best get back to coding before bulia arrives in the jabber room :)
hope that helps
Sim
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