What is a good approximate trajectory along which I must work to make open source contribs to say, the Linux kernel, or a major Python library?

Posted by pinakadhari@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 4 comments

Apart from the languages + DSA, what are the other things that will help one truly understand the codebase of major FOSS repos and make open source contribs?

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dkopgerpgdolfg@reddit

a) Researching skills. The Linux kernel has guidelines how to contribute.

b) Being used to work with large unknown codebases, technical documents that have hundreds of pages, ...

c) Much deeper development-related knowledge than just some uni DSA course.

Can you look up and understand the alignment requirements and pipeline/cycle considerations for a AVX2 256bit multiplication on a certain CPU group?

Do you know of the dangers of left-shifting in std C, integer trap representations on weird CPUs, the reason why compiling the kernel requires certain unusual compiler flags?

Can you go read some commits in your preferred kernel part and understand what problem was solved, why it was a problem, and how the code exactly helps?

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pinakadhari@reddit (OP)

Thanks for the detailed response. This gives a lot of clarity on the low level stuff I must focus on

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Rain-And-Coffee@reddit

Reading their codebase.

Go look at it. If it doesn’t make sense look up the parts that confuse you.

Repeat until it makes sense. It’s that simple.

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pinakadhari@reddit (OP)

Thanks for answering