I can help!

[Mark Doliner]

On Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:06:00 -0800, Moos Heintzen wrote
> I would like to know if there is anything I can do (preferably
> codewise) to help with the pidgin project.
> I looked at the bug list and saw that there are a *lot* of bugs!
> 
> I know some C programming (I can understand almost all of the K&R
> book), but I'm not an expert. So partly I want to gain more 
> experience in programming and how open source programs work. I also 
> know a little ncurses programming. (I've written a small snake game 
> in ncurses.)
> 
> I've looked at the some open source programs before (ffmpeg, 
> bsdutils, busybox, the kernel!, nibbles) and I was blown away by the 
> size and complexity of the programs. I would like to know how 
> developers manage those things :) nibbles (google: nibbles ncurses)
>  was reasonably small and understandable.
> 
> I'm ready to learn new stuff if needed. (GTK? GLib? I only read the
> first chapger of the GTK2 tutorial. I've looked at the GLib
> documentation and tested some functions, but I'm still a beginner.)
> 
> Of course it doesn't have to be particularly in programming. I can
> help in testing, documentation, etc. (what other stuff are there?)
> I've been using pidgin (previously gaim) for over two years :)

I think the best way for aspiring developers to get started is to find a small
bug, figure out how to reproduce it, track it down, fix it, and submit a patch
to our patch tracker.  There are tons of bugs listed at
http://developer.pidgin.im/query  Try to start small and search through the
code, learning as you go.  Here are a few bugs that might be easy to fix (some
of them might already be fixed--it's been a while since I tested them):

File transfer crash when
1. Someone sends you a file
2. Accept, and browse for a destination filename
3. Sign offline
4. Select a destination filename

Buddylist crash when
1. Right click on buddy->rename
2. Quit Gaim

Roomlist crash when
1. Open roomlist
2. Refresh
3. Sign off account
4. Expand triangle thingy

Pounce Crash #1:
1. Open edit window
2. 'Browse' for a command to execute or a sound to play
3. Close edit window
4. Close file browser
5. Crash

Pounce Crash #2:
1. Open edit window for a non-recurring pounce
2. Trigger pounce
3. Attempt to save pounce
4. Crash

There's information about checking our the lastest source code from our
Monotone repository at http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki

Looking forward to seeing your contributions,
Mark