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This describes how you can contribute to HPX. Great to have you here. There are a few ways you can help make HPX better!

How to Get Involved in Developing HPX

This page describes how you can get yourself involved with the development of HPX. Here are some easy things to do.

The easiest ways to get in contact with us are listed here:

  • Mailing list: hpx-users@stellar.cct.lsu.edu, hpx-devel@stellar.cct.lsu.edu
  • IRC channel: #ste||ar on irc.freenode.net
  • Blog: stellar.cct.lsu.edu

The basic approach is to find something fun you want to fix, hack it up, and send a git diff as a mail attachment to hpx-devel@stellar.cct.lsu.edu with a Subject prefixed with 'PATCH', as well as: "made available under the Boost Software License V1" license statement. We also need a real name for the git commit logs if you usually use an alias. Alternatively, you can create a pull request from your HPX repository you cloned on Github (see below).

It should be easy!

If you create new files, please use our License Header:

//  Copyright (c) <year> <your name>
//
//  Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
//  file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)

Please avoid larger reformatting of the code for the time being (except for the tasks listed below).

If the task is really quick and easy, 'just do it'. However, if you think it will take you some time, and/or need partitioning (eg. some big, scalable cleanup that many people can help out with), then please:

  • add a comment to the ticket that you're starting work on it
  • please provide updates each week or so, otherwise someone else may take the issue
  • please take only one part of the task at a time.

If a task has an owner without an update in a week, feel free to notify them that you're taking that on yourself, and of course if you realize you can't complete a task - please update it in the ticket system.

Even if you are deeply skilled, please consider doing one little easy hack, to get used to the process. After that, you are invited to move on up to the more difficult tasks, leaving some of the easy tasks to others so they can get involved and achieve change themselves. The quicker you move up the pile, the more quickly you can be making large scale, user-visible changes and improvements to HPX - of which these easy hacks are just the tip of a very interesting iceberg.

Before we get to the list of possible tasks, here is some additional information to get you started.

Getting Started

Get a login on Github here and fork the HPX repository to your Github account.

All new and old bugs in HPX can be found in our ticket system. Especially with new incoming bugs, it is helpful to test the bug on your own computer/operating system and comment in the bug entry whether you can or cannot confirm the bug and under what circumstances it affects you.

Getting a build - if necessary

Some but not all tasks require you to have built HPX. Even if that is not required, your feedback can be helpful to us - so - please try. The master build instructions are here with more stuff under development.

Hacking help

If you need to search constructs in the code, there is a code search engine at the Ohloh HPX page or simply at the top of this page.

General info

We use the Boost coding standards for our work on HPX

The short version of the guidelines:

  • 80-character lines.
  • Absolutely no tabs (use spaces instead of tabs).
  • Because we use git, UNIX line endings.
  • Identifiers are C++ STL style: no CamelCase. E.g. my_class instead of MyClass.
  • Use expressive identifiers.
  • Exceptions for error handling instead of C-style error codes.

There is a .editorconfig file in the HPX root directory which can be used for almost any widely available editor. Please see their webpage to download plugins for your favorite editor.

A few additional ones:

  • Use doxygen style comments to document API functions.
  • Before writing a piece of utility code, see if there is something in hpx::util, Boost or the C++ standard library that can be used to save time.

Community

Community is an important part of all we do.

  • You can help us answer questions our users have by being around on IRC (#ste||ar on irc.freenode.net) or by chiming in on the users mailing list
  • You can help write blog posts (for stellar.cct.lsu.edu) about things you're doing with HPX. We can give you access or help with posting things.
  • Create an example of how to use HPX in the real world by building something or showing what others have built.
  • Write about other people’s work based on HPX. Show how it’s used in daily life. Take screenshots and make videos!

Your first bugfix

For our project, you can talk to the following people to receive help in working through your first bugfix and thinking through the problem:

  • @hkaiser, @heller, @wash