Adopt a noob/Directed volunteering for beginners

[thenrik]

I'd like to contribute to the Rockbox project but as a noob, not only don't know where to begin but also don't have the experience to choose an intelligent venue for my efforts.

Ideally more experienced users should be working on tasks that meet their skill level but I'm sure that they end up working on less demanding tasks that could be done by others.

The apprentice starts out by sweeping the floor for the master. I think there are lots of folks who'd like to help but like me, don't know where to begin.

With some direction:
Start out with project Y but we want you to eventually grow into project x, so read this part of the wiki or get this code book  . . . .

In a year or so, we might dramatically increase output with a bigger, better trained, community.

I'm ready to start so if anyone with more experience is game, you can post to the forum or reach me via email by using my screen name at comcast dot net.

Clueless in San Francisco,

Tom

[lights0ut]

Not to be discouraging, but the impression that I get from most of the dev's is that they have barely enough of their sweet, hard earned, spare time to code for Rockbox. How are they / who is going to be able to make time to teach you? I'm not a dev myself, but as far as I know, they are willing to help only so far, they're not going to train you how to code because that would take precious time away from actually coding for Rockbox.
I think what you are talking about is similar to the Google Summer of Code, only the GSoC has students with some coding experience, not none.

Still, I'm sure your enthusiasm wont go unappreciated if you hop on IRC and start asking a few of the dev's where to start learning/what books to read, etc.

[thenrik]

Actually I wouldn't expect the developers to teach me how to code step-by-step but rather start out with more humble tasks, cleaning out the wiki???, small tasks one-by-one.

There's a lot of good will and enthusiasm here in the Rockbox community. It would be a matter for the experienced users to figure out how to harness the energy without it turning into a black hole of wasted time.

My offer still stands, if there's something to do, no matter how small or tedious, let me know.

Tom

[nls]

The wiki is in constant need of love. Update outdated info, add missing info, link pages so that it's easier to find them from related pages, etc.

The manual also needs lots of love, and if you feel up to learning a bit of TeX, it's a good place to start.

[JdGordon]

well... it depends where your passion is...
If your a coder goto flyspray, find a bug/feature request that sounds interesting (and you think you could do it), then jump on IRC and ask as many questions as you need.
If your interested in support, do the above but for the manual (always needs updating), or the wiki...
or just try and be helpful around the forum and help out the noobs that get stuck

[thenrik]

It would be helpful if a more experienced user could point out a specific section of the wiki or the manual that needs work. Any ideas?

Maybe some suggestions for reading and self-study to start coding?

Tom

[elborak]

Why not read the manual and bookmark any areas that don't immediately make sense or seem confusing. Then you can go back and ask for help rewording them.

Asking the experts how to improve the manual is probably the wrong approach. This is one area where newbie eyes are needed.

[scorche]

If you want to get started with things, you are first going to have to do a bit of reading.

Your primary resource would be http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DocsIndex#For_Developers , however if you do not know any C, obviously you will need to read a book or two about that as well.

After that, pick a project/idea you are interested in or pick a bug or request to work on to help you to get to know the source.

If you are interested in the support side of things, as has been said before, work on the manual, help people in these forums, and get in IRC and help people there as well.  Do not give help on topics that you have no clue on though, as that is on the list as a big pet peeve of ours.

If you wish to be involved, you need to work at it without our guidance, really.  Pretty much all of us have enough on our plates between Real Life and Rockbox without mentoring "hopefuls" on our hands already.  That isn't to say to net expect help, just simply to not expect us to be full-blown mentors.