On Fri, 2010-12-10 at 12:00 -0800, Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > On Friday, December 10, 2010, Felix Rohrbach wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I'm a German student who would like to help developing KDE, but whose > > welcome :) > > > 1) With which project should I start? > > pick something that interests you. there are a lot of kde applications and > all > of them can use more attention and interest. if you pick something that > interests you (because you use it, or you feel it's something that could be > made better, or because you find the topic to be challenging/interesting) you > are more likely, in my experience, to stick with it. > > you can also look at some of the smaller applications to get you started, > such > as some of the ones in kdeutils or kdeedu. they often have several wishlist > items filed against them and it can be an easy and fun way to quickly see > results and get familiar with the kde community. > > > 2) As soon as I have a project I like to work on, what is the best strategy > > to get into it? Hunting bugs, doing some little improvements (like junior > > jobs) or develop some bigger feature? > > usually i recommend to contact the developers quickly and let them know of > your interest, what help you need if any and what you are wanting to do. > > starting with simple bugs, fixing up features that aren't "quite polished > enough yet", etc. is a great way to start without drowning :)
That was the same question 2 years ago with me when I wanted to help developing KDE. I Remember seeing your (Aaron J. Seigo) picture in a published interview on a magazine (perhaps Linux For You...I think they got it from The Linux Journal, but whatever), and that inspired me more. I was a very very enthusiastic user of KDE. Frankly speaking, I never used Ubuntu because it did not come with KDE. I love and I loved KDE applications. Back then, I had no idea of what to do and by the time I got interest, some problems (which I cannot tell here) made me go away from KDE and computers altogether. When I came back after sometime, I lost interest due to many things and had to switch to Gnome for my very recent requirements. Although I am not a developer but I was and am still in love with KDE. I simply love its power. While it may not be right to tell these things on a development list, I would like to tell you a few shortcomings of the KDE project which might help developers. Since I am on another FOSS project, I wont be able to help but perhaps someone can! Here they (shortcomings) are since then, till now: 1. Its complicated. Difficult to even think of where to start. I see a lot of students interested in OSS development, even here in India. Since KDE has a significant amount of resemblance to the Windows UI, I would recommend a small development guide to be setup on the website which would help the newcomers. Its really needed for those who have not had the OSS developement taste before. 2. KDE apps are full of features and at times lick functionality and stability. Would it not be great to stop working on "features" and focus on "functionality" and "stability" for ALL the applications in the suite? For example, when I try to use 'Network Manager' in KDE on Fedora, it just does not work after many attempts but the same thing works great in Gnome (The same problem existed in OpenSUSE). Well, I am not sure and may be that part is done by fedora project but KDE project could help in there. 3. KDE, as I know works on QT and it would be great to provide a QT primer on the website so that the KDElibs could also get some interest in new comers' minds. 4. Why not combine the functionality and best features of those many applications into one? Like it is strange to have a "Floppy formatter"! Also, why should one have both "Kfind and KFileReplace"? Can't we sort to merge them into one. Its like having a separate calculator programs for Simple, Scientific, Statistics and Programmer Calculations! We always feel better to change 'modes' than changing windows on desktop, which is why nothing beats Kontact!! This is one thing which can simplify things for users and possibly for KDE SC team as well! It would be just like making one 'Okular" and remove all that KPDF and KChmvViewer. Well, as far as KDE is concerned, I am only a user but then I hope I am allowed to share my views, ideas and recommendations here without getting flamed. If possible, kindly give those points a thought. What I would say about KDE with Gnome as a comparison is : Gnome is not great because it is easy to use, or simple to understand. It is more popular because it comes with a 'few' applications which 'work' in almost all cases, while KDE fails at times. Lets make it more useful, integrated, functional and sophicticated (By that I mean sophisticated with greater ease of use). I want to use KDE again, just as many of my other friends who had to switch to Gnome. I am ready to fall in love with KDE again! I hope someone is listening. -Vaibhav (*_*) >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<
