Re: contribute perl dpkg
Olà!
On Wed, 2020-04-15 at 09:37:14 +0100, Joao Miguel Ferreira wrote:
> For some time I have considered I could also contribute a bit, maybe I have
> something that could help Debian as Debian has helped me so much.
Great!
> I know that some important packages, related to dpkg written in perl. I
> have only started reading the "Debian Packaging Tutorial" yesterday.
Yeah, libdpkg-perl and dpkg-dev are all mostly in perl. These are the
packages that deal mostly with source packages and building them.
> Could anyone show me some directions? Where could I start?
I'm not sure whether I'll have enough time or energy to do continued
guidance/mentoring. But we can try. :)
Ok, so given that most of what is in dpkg requires understanding about
packaging in general and specifically how the packaging toolchain
operates, beginning by reading the documentation is a good start. I'd
recommend also covering the Debian policy, even though dpkg in many
cases is catered for other systems than Debian and is thus (or it should)
not necessarily be restricted by Debian specifics. Also if you find
yourself wondering about things that are not clear from dpkg
documentation (man pages, POD, the wiki etc), I'd be glad to hear so
that we can improve those.
Once you think you've good these covered, you could check:
<https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/Contribute>
Personally I find that scratching your own itch works best, but if you
are not maintaining packages, that might be difficult to come by.
Perhaps a good way to get started with the code base could be to
improve the coverage by adding/extending unit tests?
<https://www.dpkg.org/coverage/scripts/coverage.html>
Otherwise perhaps a good initial task might be the Dpkg::Checksums
one from?
<https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/Task/PerlAPICleanup>
In general, I find that email requires more energy, as it feels more
formal and final, so perhaps you might want to join the #debian-dpkg
IRC channel on OFTC if you are into that.
Thanks,
Guillem
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