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Contributing.md

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Contributing to QDirStat

Contributions are welcome. Please follow the rules and guide lines in this document:

Guide Lines

Use the same style as the existing code.

Indentation is 4 blanks. One tab is 8 blanks. Do not indent with single tabs for each indentation level and thus fuck up everybody else's editor. Letting the editor automatically replace 8 blanks with a tab is okay, but indentation level is still 4 blanks.

Brace style is braces always on a new line. Use blanks after opening and before closing parentheses:

if ( someCondition )
{
    doSomething( arg1, arg2 )
}

No K&R style indentation:

if (someCondition) {         // WRONG!!!
    doSomething(arg1, arg2)  // WRONG!!!
}

Use blank lines liberally. No Rubocop-style code.

Use CamelCase for classes and camelCase for variables. Do not use snake_case. Prefix member variables with an underscore: _someValue. Prefix its setter with Set...(), use only the name (someValue()) for the getter, Not getSomeValue():

private:
    SomeType _someValue;    // member variable

public:
    const & SomeType someValue() const;              // getter
    void setSomeValue( const SomeType & newValue );  // setter

Use a const reference for the setter parameter and the getter return type for nontrival data types (everything beyond a pointer or an int etc.), and the type directly otherwise. Use your common sense.

Use Qt types whereever possible. Do not introduce types that are also available in a Qt version. In particular, do not use STL or Boost types unless there is no other reasonable way.

For Qt dialogs, use Qt Designer forms whenever possible. I know that many Qt developers don't like Qt Designer (typically based on bad experiences years back), but it's really worthwhile to use it. This avoids having tons of dumb boilerplate code just for creating widget trees.

Documenting Classes and their Methods

Document classes and their methods in their header file. Document them immediately. If you don't do it right away, it will never happen. Don't wait for somebody else to do that for you - nobody will be willing to do the inconvenient part of the job for you.

Undocumented stuff will mercilessly be rejected.

In my 30+ years of programming I came to the conclusion that it helps immensely to write down a function name in the header file and immediately write its documentation:

  • What does it do? (Do not just repeat the function name! Explain what it does!)
  • What are the parameters?
  • What does it return?
  • In particular for functions returning bool: Which case returns 'true', which case returns 'false'?
  • What happens in fringe cases? (returning NULL pointer?)
  • If the function creates any objects: Who owns them?
  • Does the function transfer ownership of any objects it gets pointers to (as parameters) to itself or wherever?

If you do that right, you might as well leave the implementation to somebody else.

Do not insert any doc template without content before each function. This is worse than no documentation at all: Everybody has to wade through tons of useless empty forms that don't contain any content whatsoever.

Been there. Done that. Hated it.

Be careful when copying and pasting documentation from some other place. Misleading documentation is worse than no documentation at all.

Legalese in the Sources

Do not copy 30+ lines of legalese bullshit into any source file. One line in the header like

License: GPL V2 - see file LICENSE

is plenty. Seriously, what are those people thinking who put all that legalese into source files? Sure, they listened to spineless corporate lawyers who just want to make sure. But those lawyers are not going to have that crap smack up their faces every time they open a file for editing. We developers do.

You lawyers out there, can you hear me? This crap is in the way! Nobody wants to read that! It's in the way of people trying to do their jobs! We could construct a harassment case from this!

Getting Help for Contributors

  • Use the Qt reference documentation.
  • Install and study carefully the available Qt examples for reference.
  • Read the (extensive!) documentation in the QDirStat header files.
  • Use Stack Overflow.
  • Use Google.
  • Make sure you can build a basic Qt program.
  • Make sure you have the compiler and other developer tools set up correctly.
  • Make sure you have the relevant -devel (SUSE) or -dev (Ubuntu/Debian) packages installed.

If you did all of the above (and only then!) and still couldn't figure out what's wrong:

  • Use IRC (#qdirstat on irc.freenode.net; fallback: contact HuHa in #yast on freenode IRC)
  • Write a mail

It is a matter of professional courtesy to first use what is freely available on the web before you consume somebody else's time and expertise. It is utterly rude to let somebody else point you to the exact part of the Qt documentation you couldn't be bothered to read.

Does this sound unfriendly? Well, maybe - but: Been there, done that, got the fucking T-shirt -- countless times. This is not how I want to spend my spare time.

There are some people who keep arguing that "it takes hours for me to read through all the documentation, whereas you as an expert can give me the right answer within a minute".

Well, yes, it might only take a minute to write the answer in IRC, but then that newbie won't learn anything except that it pays off to disturb people rather than learn for himself. And reading the documentation is always a good investment of time; it is never wasted. In the process of searching for an answer you will come across many things you hadn't known - and that might just be useful for your next question.

Plus, it will take the expert that one or two minutes to write the answer to IRC - and then 15-20 minutes to recover from the interrupt, to restore the fragile buildings in his mind he needs to solve the problem he was originally working on.

Please keep in mind that every such interrupt will cost 20-30 minutes of time on average, and a working day only has 16-24 such time slots; and those experts tend to be in high demand on many different communication channels (IRC, personal mail, mailing lists, bugzilla, phone, people walking into the office).

So, should you join the project as a newbie?

If you have patience, self-discipline and are willing to learn (which includes reading the Qt documentation first), and, most importantly, if you are willing to stay with the project and not let some unfortunate guy clean up half-ready stuff, yes.

Just keep in mind that others are doing this because (a) it's fun for them and/or (b) because they want that piece of software to be successful. Educating newbies and cleaning up after them is very low on most developers' list of fun things to do. They still do it, but it's painful for them. Please help minimizing that pain.