Development/Simplifying entry for new developers

Purpose of this initiative

This is an initiative started to make it easier for new developers to start to contribute to the project.

It identifies several issues which together might make contributing harder for interested developers.

The solutions will be applied to the contributing and development websites.

Workplaces

contributing.openoffice.org/tryouts/
programming.html
development.openoffice.org/tryouts/

Contact the Education Project, who aims to find future OpenOffice.org developers, mainly students, who are discovering OpenOffice.org Project. IRC dedicated Education Project channel is : #education.openoffice.org , server : irc.freenode.net

In the ClassRoom page, you probably will find information about the essentials. For example, you'll find on them Practice, or IRC Meetings Logs we did as "ClassRooms"

And if you think you can help fixing some bugs , please have a look at the Effort page

Possible issues

These are the possible problems identified:

Developers' Site map

Would work great on the development page as a top link.

http://development.openoffice.org/OpenOffice.org%20Developer%20Site%20Map.html

Building the software

This effort is now here: OpenOffice.org Building Guide

CVS and SVN

Articles covering code which is nowdays available in SVN instead should be updated.

Contribution - Programming

The page has a strange introduction, that begins with a to do list. Maybe the user already has an idea of what he would like to do. The page tells the user to start building the code. The programmer should learn what it is like to develop in the community first.

http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html

Building on Windows

Promotes ooo-build and says building the Vanilla build is painful.

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Windows#Using_vanilla_source

I want to be an OpenOffice.org developer wiki page

Suggest to delete the following page.

I want to be an OpenOffice.org developer

That page has been recently updated. I consider it useful in its current state, although the page title is awkward. So, move maybe - but not delete. Also it is linked from the Main Page currently.

Getting the source code

Create a guide that works for all operating systems, that everyone can point to.

Template:Documentation/Note

Build Windows Tcsh

Is this page still valid?

http://tools.openoffice.org/dev_docs/build_windows_tcsh.html#BuildRequirements

Developer Types

New developers

Will start at contributing.openoffice.org or at development.openoffice.org
Want to know what is required of him/her
Want to learn the basics
Want to learn only the things that is required to do the work

Existing developers

Will start directly at development.openoffice.org
Want to get reference documentation
Want to have this information close at hand

Contributing related pages

These pages may be related or interesting to new developers.

Contributing Members

Per Eriksson
Martin Hollmichel
Mathias Bauer