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The PyOhio contribu-palooza starts this Saturday!� http://www.pyohio.org/Contribute With two talks and a two-day-four-night sprint, I'm very hopeful that it will recruit and train some new core workers.�


I'm preparing my portion, the teach-the-newbie (me) -to-fix-a-core-bug session, and I want to make sure that I'm prepared in two ways:

1. Any bulky download/compilation steps are complete

I pulled the Py3 trunk with svn co http://svn.python.org/projects/python/branches/py3k python, did the compilation steps, and verified that I can fire up the latest build.


I also note that http://www.python.org/dev/ doesn't say anything about hg yet.� Is there someplace else I should look for hg-centered docs?� Should we just teach it using svn if that's better documented?� Then again, if hg is the way of the future...


I also built the docs (``cd Doc; make html``)

Are there other things that I need to do to configure my machine beforehand?� Things that are too long/boring for the audience to sit through while I do it live?


2. Have a good set of questions to ask.

Here's what I'm planning so far:

- While running ``make test`` on the Python trunk, I got an error on "test_os".� Is that a problem with my
machine's configuration, or with the build?� Do I need to report it?� Can I ignore it?


Now we'll find a bug.
- Do I need an account on bugs.python.org?� What do I need to do to get one?
- How do I find a bug suitable for me to work on?
���� - entry-level

���� - in Python not C
���� - corresponding to my strong points / interests

Now we'll "find" a fake bug that David has planted for us.� (David, have you planted it yet?)
- Can/should I make my edits directly in the trunk that I just pulled down?�

- Now we'll make the fix... maybe this should involve using a debugging IDE or pdb?
- How do I verify that my fix worked?� That it didn't break anything else?� That it's written with proper style?� That it doesn't generally suck?

- How do I send my fix back up to the trunk?
- How do I record my work in the bug tracker?

(If time permits) now let's try writing a test for a gap in test coverage (not necessarily on the code we just worked on - this doesn't have to be fake)


DON'T ANSWER THESE!� I need to carefully guard my sincere ignorance through Saturday!� (Actually, I already have a pretty good idea about some of them, but I don't want my ignorance to become any less sincere than it already is.)� But, if you're David or Dan or anybody else who's going to be there, you may want to ponder how you'll guide me through it.�


But what I want to know from all of you is: what other questions should be on my list?

I was going to address this only to David, my primary audience/instructor volunteer, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to get input from the rest of you.


Thank you all!

--
- Catherine
http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/
*** PyOhio 2010 * July 31 - Aug 1 * Columbus, OH * pyohio.org ***