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Date: 1999-08-04
To Think About When Contributing Source Code
This document is intended to offer some guidelines that can be useful to
keep in mind when you decide to write a contribution to the project. This
concerns new features as well as corrections to existing flaws or bugs.
Naming
Try using a non-confusing naming scheme for your new functions and variable
names. It doesn't necessarily have to mean that you should use the same as
in other places of the code, just that the names should be logical,
understandable and be named according to what they're used for.
Indenting
Please try using the same indenting levels and bracing method as all the
other code already does. It makes the source code a lot easier to follow if
all of it is written using the same style. I don't ask you to like it, I
just ask you to follow the tradition! ;-)
Commenting
Comment your source code extensively. I don't see myself as a very good
source commenter, but I try to become one. Commented code is quality code
and enables future modifications much more. Uncommented code much more risk
being completely replaced when someone wants to extend things, since other
persons' source code can get quite hard to read.
General Style
Keep your functions small. If they're small you avoid a lot of mistakes and
you don't accidentaly mix up variables.
Non-clobbering All Over
When you write new functionality or fix bugs, it is important that you
don't fiddle all over the source files and functions. Remember that it is
likely that other people have done changes in the same source files as you
have and possibly even in the same functions. If you bring completely new
functionality, try writing it in a new source file. If you fix bugs, try to
fix one bug at a time and send them as separate patches.
Separate Patches Doing Different Things
It is annoying when you get a huge patch from someone that is said to fix 511
odd problems, but discussions and opinions don't agree with 510 of them - or
509 of them were already fixed in a different way. Then the patcher needs to
extract the single interesting patch from somewhere within the huge pile of
source, and that gives a lot of extra work. Preferably, all fixes that
correct different problems should be in their own patch with an attached
description exactly what they correct so that all patches can be selectively
applied by the maintainer or other interested parties.
Document
Writing docs is dead boring and one of the big problems with many open
source projects. Someone's gotta do it. It makes it a lot easier if you
submit a small description of your fix or your new features with every
contribution so that it can be swiftly added to the package documentation.
Write Access to CVS Repository
If you are a frequent contributor, or have another good reason, you can of
course get write access to the CVS repository and then you'll be able to
check-in all your changes straight into the CVS tree instead of sending all
changes by mail as patches. Just ask if this is what you'd want.
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