[Cython] Willing to contribute

[Robert Bradshaw]

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 1:53 PM, Stefano <stefano.k.sanfilippo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I've been a enthusiast Python programmer for 3 years now, and I've hailed
> Cython project with great interest. Now, I'm willing to contribute. I've would
> say I'm an quite an expert Python programmer and I've some-year-long
> experience with C, modern C++ and its cousin Java. Sidenote, I'm a student at
> Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
>
> Everything started with trying to speed up a Mandelbrot generator, which
> heavily relies on complex numbers. Eventually I've found in "Mini Projects (or
> something similar)" wiki that C99 `complex' is still to be implemented. So, I
> decide to make a step further and try to hop into development.

As Lisandro mentioned, complex numbers have been implemented, but
there's still plenty to do :).

> I've would be grateful if a core developer could point me in the right
> direction concerning coding style, repositories, deadlines (I'm still a
> student, so I may have 'offline' days this winter) and other issues.

Our process is pretty simple. Our code is up at
https://github.com/cython/ and we prefer contributions via pull
requests; the documentation is in the same repository. As for coding
guildelines, we try to follow http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/
and support Python 2.4+. Everyone here is working on Cython on the
side (with, I suppose, the exception of Google Summer of Code
contributors) so development is done in a pretty informal
as-you-have-the-time manner. For substantially new features, a Cython
Enhancement Proposal http://wiki.cython.org/enhancements is usually in
order.

> I may
> start with something easy (`complex' implementation, or command line API
> restructuration), and I'd like someone from the team to discuss what I'll be
> implementing (ok, just for the first days), just to see if  "I'm doing it
> right" (TM) and, mostly, if I'm the right man or I'm just making you loose
> your time.

We'll try to answer your questions, but the more specific the better.
You might also want to play around with "cython -a" and the options in
Cython/Compiler/DebugFlags.py to find your way around the codebase.
There is also some good documentation on the wiki, but as has been
pointed out, there's some really old stuff there as well. (There's a
lot of non-coding work to be done too :-).

Everyone scratches their own itch, but all of us here would agree that
this is a pretty fun one.

> You can see an example of what I did in the past here:
> http://code.google.com/p/libsmth/ - for instance (still a WIP).
>
> I really appreciate your work :)

Thanks.

- Robert