Hey Philip, That is awesome! You actually don't have to write Java or Scala code to contribute.
There is the usual thing that presentations (which you are already doing), improving website docs, and general community participation are all at least as valuable as new code. However in addition to that, one of the things that actually makes Kafka useful is the non-java clients. Actually since our hope is to make Kafka effective as a centralized data pipeline, this is one of the more critical things (if you can't easily integrate all your applications with the pipeline because there isn't a client or it isn't good then this falls apart). I think there is a ton of room to improve the client ecosystem. I will post some of the ideas I have in this area in a separate thread to kick off a discussion. -Jay On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 9:28 PM, Philip O'Toole <philip_o_to...@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote: > First things first. I friggin' think Kafka rocks. It's a system that have > given me a lot of joy, and I've spent a lot of fun hours (and sometimes not > so fun) looking at consumer lag metrics. I'd like to give back, beyond > spreading the gospel about it architecturally and operationally. > > > My only concern is Scala. I know very little about it, except that it's a > JVM-based language. And there's the rub. I really do not like Java. I hate > that it's next to impossible to code it without an IDE (so many files, so > many Manager classes, so many...). I find Java to have this super high > type-to-thought ratio. Would you guys have anything to say about Scala > compared to Java? How has your experience been with coding in it, and > building large systems with it? > > > Philip > > > > On Thursday, July 17, 2014 2:33 PM, Jay Kreps <jay.kr...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Hey All, > > Wow, glad that there is so much interest. > > As people mentioned a good place to get started to kind of learn the > basics of the code base are the newbie and newbie++ JIRAs: > http://bit.ly/1jR3lyJ > > If you take on any of these and get stuck we are very happy to help > you get unstuck. Feel free to reach out to the mailing list, or, I > really like Neha's idea of pairing people up with existing committers. > > When you feel like you have gotten the basics down of how to > contribute a patch and can kind of find your way around the code base, > you may be looking for something a little more challenging. There are > two approaches here, you may have some existing things you would like > to fix or change in Kafka. If this is the case just discuss it on the > mailing list or a JIRA, get basic consensus on the approach, and then > dive in. For some though they may not have a specific project in mind, > if this applies to you we have a huge backlog of good project/feature > ideas in mind and can help put something together that is appropriate > for your interests, level of expertise, time commitment, etc. > > Cheers, > > -Jay > > > On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 7:00 AM, Neha Narkhede <neha.narkh...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> Thanks Jay for bringing this up. A couple things might help - >> >> 1. Be diligent in marking newbie/newbie++ labels. I've seen us do pretty >> well here. >> 2. Pair up contributors to committers for a few initial patches to ensure a >> smoother ramp up. I've recently done this and have seen it work pretty >> well. Happy to help more. >> 3. Jay and I talked about ways of improving patch review turnaround time. >> Mostly, the problem is that committers are either swamped or not sure which >> patches need review. What might work is to assign the JIRA to a committer >> for review and have the committer shepherd the patch to checkin and >> reassign the JIRA back to the contributor. I can help with triaging and >> assigning committers to patch reviews and over time most of the committers >> will be able to do this. >> >> Thanks, >> Neha >> >> >> On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 10:26 PM, pushkar priyadarshi < >> priyadarshi.push...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> I have been using kafka for quite some time now and would really be >>> interested to contribute to this awesome code base. >>> >>> Regards, >>> Pushkar >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 7:17 AM, Joe Stein <joe.st...@stealth.ly> wrote: >>> >>> > ./gradlew scaladoc >>> > >>> > Builds the scala doc, perhaps we can start to publish this again with the >>> > next release and link it on the website. For more related check out the >>> > README >>> > >>> > >>> > /******************************************* >>> > Joe Stein >>> > Founder, Principal Consultant >>> > Big Data Open Source Security LLC >>> > http://www.stealth.ly >>> > Twitter: @allthingshadoop <http://www.twitter.com/allthingshadoop> >>> > ********************************************/ >>> > >>> > >>> > On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 8:39 PM, hsy...@gmail.com <hsy...@gmail.com> >>> > wrote: >>> > >>> > > Is there a scala API doc for the entire kafka library? >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 5:34 PM, hsy...@gmail.com <hsy...@gmail.com> >>> > > wrote: >>> > > >>> > > > Hi Jay, >>> > > > >>> > > > I would like to take a look at the code base and maybe start working >>> on >>> > > > some jiras. >>> > > > >>> > > > Best, >>> > > > Siyuan >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Jay Kreps <jay.kr...@gmail.com> >>> > wrote: >>> > > > >>> > > >> Hey All, >>> > > >> >>> > > >> A number of people have been submitting really nice patches >>> recently. >>> > > >> >>> > > >> If you are interested in contributing and are looking for something >>> to >>> > > >> work on, or if you are contributing and are interested in ramping up >>> > > >> to be a committer on the project, please let us know--we are happy >>> to >>> > > >> help you help us :-). It is often hard to know what JIRAs or >>> projects >>> > > >> would be good to work on, how hard those will be, and where to get >>> > > >> started. Feel free to reach out to me, Neha, Jun, or any of the >>> other >>> > > >> committers for help with this. >>> > > >> >>> > > >> Cheers, >>> > > >> >>> > > >> -Jay >>> > > >> >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > >>> > >>>
