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Open source development - how does it work?

by FruitBatInShades · in Technical Issues · 06/17/2004 (8:55 am) · 6 replies

I am an experienced application developer and have been writing apps for err... a few years.. cough! I wanted to pick everybodies brains about editing someone elses source code.
Whenever oppurtunity has allowed I have always re-written any project I came across. It is usually a lot quicker than trying to decipher someone elses code.
My question is does anyone have any resources, tips or ideas on how you go about learning someone elses source code? Are there any quick ways or techniques other than just paging through the code.
How do people start out on an Open Source project? Do they sit down for months reading all the code or just focus on a little bit, change it and move on?
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Torque Owner J. Alan Atherton
#1
06/17/2004 (8:59 am)
The little that I have done involved deciding what I wanted to add, then finding the code that related to that feature and adding/changing as appropriate. So I suppose I focus on a little bit, change it, and move on. For me the most difficult part is deciding what I want to add, and what's in my ability.

Torque Owner Jeff Houck
#2
06/17/2004 (2:04 pm)
Hmm, I think it varies quite a bit. Some OS code I've looked at either was well commented in the source, or had a doxygen API html-style listing. Or, it was the other extreme with no docs and I ended up doing my own UML to map it out, function by function.

Of course, you could contact the author...

Torque Owner FruitBatInShades
#3
06/17/2004 (2:11 pm)
Quote:Of course, you could contact the author...
Programmers are not good at documentation and there aren't enough hours in the week. I was just wondering because I'm getting Torque and will have to go over the code and may shortly become involved in an open source project.
I just wondered whether anyone had jumped into an open source project and had learnt anything that would be useful.

Torque Owner Prairie Games
Prairie Games, Inc.
#4
06/17/2004 (2:26 pm)
"I just wondered whether anyone had jumped into an open source project and had learnt anything that would be useful."

Tons. Tons and Tons. Tons and Tons and Tons.

Where to start... How about asking some pointed questions?

One tip, if it's a big codebase with little documentaion... run Doxygen on it (preferably with the graphical charting option)... so you can get a somewhat bigger picture.

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games

Torque Owner Edward Gardner
#5
06/17/2004 (4:14 pm)
Doxygen is your friend.

I run an open source project in addition to doing MaxGaming stuff. It's a heckuva thing to keep track of, but, good source control (we use CVS) with good commit comments, and constant badgering of the developers to comment their code, and an up to date doxygen run, are the ways to keep sane.

Also, active projects frequently have forums, and, real people can provide the missing links in understanding a codebase. It's kinda organic (not too terribly different from the early days of Torque ;)).

Torque Owner FruitBatInShades
#6
06/26/2004 (4:24 am)
I've found a free book that cobers CVS and open-source, it explains it all very well :o)
Red Bean PDF