Week 9
Week 9 Blog
Thoughts on "Why to Report Bugs":
After reading the article “They Might Never Tell You It’s Broken,” I concur with the writer’s view that bugs need to be reported and would further add that it is imperative that those in the open-source community feel encouraged to report them. In the article, the writer points out three main reasons as to why they believe individuals do not report bugs, including: the assumption that the bug has already been reported, the feeling of confusion/embarrassment to reach out, and the lack of investment in the project. I fully support the writer’s rationale behind this. As a first-time contributor, and someone who also tends to look for projects to use in their free time, I believe I am capable of putting myself in the shoes of these users. I am able to understand from the user perspective how individuals are sometimes quick to dismiss bugs or assume that an issue has already been reported. Additionally, I am also able to emphasize those who are hesitant to ask for help due to the factors of intimidation or supposing that the issue falls on the individual and not on the project itself. As the writer suggests, I believe that having a welcoming and evident message in the README which states that the community is receptive to and encourages bug reports, will signficantly increase the chances of these bugs being reported. Furthermore, I believe that if contributors and users are able to establish a more communicative relationship in an open-source then users will feel more inclined to discuss bugs that they have found and improvements in the project that can be made.
Thoughts on investigating Wikipedia's pages:
What Have I Found/Discovered?
I have found/discovered many pages that I will be able to make contributions to! In order to begin making contributions towards Wikipedia pages, I felt that it was best to edit pages that I was familiar with. While making edits to these pages, I learned how to cite sources. I also learned that it is best to use objective diction and valid sources. With this information, in conjunction with all of the research I had done, I was even able to add an entire section of information for one Wikipedia page! I feel that I have gotten more comfortable with making edits to Wikipedia pages and I will consistently get better at making contributions as I continue to navigate the site.
What Did I Difficult?
I believe that Wikipedia can be difficult to contribute to because it has so many contributers. As I have previously stated, Wikipedia contains numerous pages that have an over-abudance of information on a plethora of subjects, which make it difficult to find pages that need editing. Furthermore, although I believe it is easy to cite sources and add information to a page, it can be difficult to maintain objective diction. For example, you may want to say a marketing campaign was “successful,” however, this would not keep up with the Wikipedia guidelines of maintaining objectivity. It is imperative to keep in mind the proper rhetoric to use whilst making these contributions. Although these aspects of editing Wikipedia pages may pose as a challenge, it is still possible to make thoughtful contributions (small or large) to many different pages!
Thoughts on the Visit by Kevin Fleming:
What Have I Learned and What Was Unexpected?
I believe that what I had learned from the visit by Kevin Fleming works in conjunction with what was unexpected! I thought it was extremely interesting to learn about Bloomberg’s tie with the open-source community. It surprised me how they employed open source infrastructure tools wherever they could. It was even more fascinating that they contribute their extensions or enhancements to a project when they believe it would be useful to the user community. I was also interested in their use of Project Jupyter (a project we have previously discussed in class!) and their goal to increase usability and effectiveness of the JupyterLab user interface.
Progress on Gatsby Project:
Issue I was interested in working on last week:
Last week I was particularly interested in the above issue, however, since then I have changed my mind. As I continued my research into the tickets that Gatsby had to offer, I found other issues that seemed more suitable for me. The more I read about the above ticket, the more daunting it seemed. The issue asked for walkthroughs, as well as, a guide in the options one would have for using various methods for creating relationships between data. Although I would not have minded putting in the work, I grew nervous that it would become overwhelming and I would not know how to discuss everything that was expected of this ticket. After more research, I read that the individual who opened the issue stated they were an intermediate Gatsby user and had difficulty understanding how some of the methods worked. Therefore, after careful evaluation, I shifted my attention to another issue.
Issue I will begin working on:
I have decided to work on this ticket because it seems suitable for a beginner and still has the aspect of documentation/writing that I wanted out of an issue. The ticket summary is concise and has references to other issues and Gatsby website links in order to point me in the direction of how I should start researching for this ticket. I am confident that with the right amount of work, I will be able to resolve this ticket. In order to notify the user that I am interested in the ticket, I left a comment on the issue asking if I could open up a pull request in order to begin working on it. I will continue to detail my progress as I hear back and begin my journey as a first-time Gatsby contributor!
Research I Have Done This Week/Contributions:
I have continued reading articles on Open Source this week! My favorite one that I came across was Elizabeth Warren for President open-sources its 2020 campaign tech. I thought it was extremely attention-catching and I was amazed by the Warren for President Tech Team’s ideals! The Tech Team discussed that they wished to open-source many of the top apps and digitals tools that they created in the Democratic campaign for Elizabeth Warren in order to help other candidates. They are encouraging the use of these ideas and code in order to strengthen future candidate campaigns and help these candidates win!
I have made contributions Wikipedia this week and established which issue I would like to begin working on in Gatsby! I will continue to make contributions throughout this following week.