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Do you have any recommendations on how to get started? I have been using open source for around 10 years and always wanted to contribute. I am a confident pytho

Do you have any recommendations on how to get started? I have been using open source for around 10 years and always wanted to contribute. I am a confident python scripter and have used NetworkX in the past for various academic projects, however I have no idea how to get started as a beginner dev and contribute to open issues and bugs. Heck, I don't even know how large codebases are structured! Any hints or recommendation are welcome! :D

dallathee 4y ago
A good place to start specifically for NetworkX would be to go through the new contributor documentation: https://networkx.org/documentation/latest/developer/new_contributor_faq.html https://networkx.org/documentation/latest/developer/new_cont... We also have some structured projects https://networkx.org/documentation/latest/developer/projects.html https://networkx.org/documentation/latest/developer/projects... but they are usually for programs like GSoC/Outreachy. Feel free to start a discussion https://github.com/networkx/networkx/discussions https://github.com/networkx/networkx/discussions if you are looking for something specific :) [I am one of the NetworkX devs]
mcyc 4y ago
If projects have a "good first issue" tag, they can sometimes be a good place to start. The problem is they are mostly "add tests" or "expand docs", which are important but not very exciting. Imo the best thing is to have a mentor who hopefully can find a reasonable thing to improve/add/fix and can help calm your nerves (submitting a pull request can be kinda scary haha). With NetworkX, in the past there were a lot of minor inefficiencies (things like materializing a list comprehension when you don't need to, etc) that are 1) easy to understand 2) don't require in depth knowledge of graph theory 3) are generally applicable to all python code and 4) easy to measure the results. They aren't the flashiest contributions, but the people I've done it with (6 or 7 at this point) have all seemed to enjoy it. To be clear, I'm _not_ affiliated with NetworkX, but if you are interested in trying it out, my contact info is in my profile. Feel free to reach out.

dallathee 4y ago

A good place to start specifically for NetworkX would be to go through the new contributor documentation: https://networkx.org/documentation/latest/developer/new_contributor_faq.html https://networkx.org/documentation/latest/developer/new_cont... We also have some structured projects https://networkx.org/documentation/latest/developer/projects.html https://networkx.org/documentation/latest/developer/projects... but they are usually for programs like GSoC/Outreachy. Feel free to start a discussion https://github.com/networkx/networkx/discussions https://github.com/networkx/networkx/discussions if you are looking for something specific :) [I am one of the NetworkX devs]

mcyc 4y ago

If projects have a "good first issue" tag, they can sometimes be a good place to start. The problem is they are mostly "add tests" or "expand docs", which are important but not very exciting. Imo the best thing is to have a mentor who hopefully can find a reasonable thing to improve/add/fix and can help calm your nerves (submitting a pull request can be kinda scary haha). With NetworkX, in the past there were a lot of minor inefficiencies (things like materializing a list comprehension when you don't need to, etc) that are 1) easy to understand 2) don't require in depth knowledge of graph theory 3) are generally applicable to all python code and 4) easy to measure the results. They aren't the flashiest contributions, but the people I've done it with (6 or 7 at this point) have all seemed to enjoy it. To be clear, I'm _not_ affiliated with NetworkX, but if you are interested in trying it out, my contact info is in my profile. Feel free to reach out.