Why do open-source people always say, "Well contribute! Start working on the code?"

[beer]

This always intruiged me. Most of the stout open-source supporters will always say "well you can contribute too, just start working on the code!"

Now it may be that my 3 years of C and C++ suck, but I don't really understand a damn thing about just about every piece of actual, functonal (aka not a lab assignment) software that I have ever looked at. And that's two years of AP CS 2 in HS, 5s on both tests, and two semesters of C at a top10 EE college. And the moment that I even open up any of these software projects I can't get any mental image of what is going on, even with the extensive commenting.

Do OS developers really expect your run-of-the-mill Linux or Windows user to actually be able to fix bugs in open source software without creating another 50 of their own?

 

[Soybomb]

I've never had one tell me that If you wanted to contribute though you are capable and could learn to.

 

[NogginBoink]

It can be done.

I don't understand most of the OS code I wade through, but I often understand just enough to decipher what the code is doing and how it's affected my customer.

Best way to learn is by doing!

 

[CrazyDe1]

Originally posted by: Elemental007
This always intruiged me. Most of the stout open-source supporters will always say "well you can contribute too, just start working on the code!"

Now it may be that my 3 years of C and C++ suck, but I don't really understand a damn thing about just about every piece of actual, functonal (aka not a lab assignment) software that I have ever looked at. And that's two years of AP CS 2 in HS, 5s on both tests, and two semesters of C at a top10 EE college. And the moment that I even open up any of these software projects I can't get any mental image of what is going on, even with the extensive commenting.

Do OS developers really expect your run-of-the-mill Linux or Windows user to actually be able to fix bugs in open source software without creating another 50 of their own?

Yeah, I've always wondered this too...but I guess a certain amount is just understanding the basics and then you can learn and figure out how to do anything you need to from examples...

 

[Martin]

I've never tried, but its always seemed quite hard to me.

Have you tried starting with some very small projects and working your way up?

 

[beer]

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
I've never tried, but its always seemed quite hard to me.

Have you tried starting with some very small projects and working your way up?

Well at the time I wrote this, I was looking at the WASTE source code. Barely 400K including all scripts and makefiles and it still was pretty damn confusing, especially the authentication stuff.

 

[michaelh20]

An object oriented language like c++ allows for more abstraction, might be easier to work on than a C project.




http://bzflag.sourceforge.net <-- a neat 3d tank game written in C++ & C -- Took me a while to learn my way around, but there's tons of stuff in there to learn / appreciate

 

[Staples]

A lot of the stuff is really OS calls that are included in the libraries included at the top of the source. If you know C and C++ well enough to understand the concepts of objects, it is just learning how they are used that is standing in your way.