Submitting patches for newbies (was Re: The nntplib module)

[Travers Naran]

"Gerhard Häring" <gerhard.nospam at bigfoot.de> wrote in message
news:slrn9qfan8.1j1.gerhard.nospam at lilith.hqd-internal...
> On Tue, 18 Sep 2001 08:56:32 -0700, Travers Naran <tnaran at direct.ca>
wrote:
> >Hi group:
> >
> >I'm working on a newsgroup binaries extractor (which works well under
> >Windows and LINUX), and I'm finding the nntplib doesn't have that nice
> >feature the Perl NNTP module has of downloading an article body to a
file.
> >I've modified my local copy of nntplib to handle this, but I can't find
any
> >reference to who is maintaining this module so I can make this
suggestion.
> >Who should I contact?  Thanks in advance!
>
> If you already have implemented it and you're confident about it, I'd just
> submit a patch at Sourceforge.

I did.  That was an exciting experience.

Some things I've learned:

1. Read the *ENTIRE* Patches FAQ before submitting.  It would have saved me
a lot of trouble before hand. :-)

2. A contextual patch is generated by the command: 'diff -cw {orig_version}
{new_version} >{patch file}'.  Use GNU's diff.  Test your patch by using the
patch command.on the original version (obviously backup the original version
before trying this).

3. Get the >>LATEST<< version of the file from the CVS tree before making
your changes, then test it with code designed to work with the old version.
If it is backwards compatible, submit.  If not, make a new method or write a
PEP.

Please feel free to add your own comments.

I also think one should put a request for peer review onto this group to get
more experienced Python developers to look over proposed changes and code.

Just my $0.02 worth as a new contributor