Hi,

On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 2:04 AM, Steve Richards <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello,
> A few years ago I wanted to volunteer and got in touch to do so but did not
> have the time then. I'd now like to contribute where possible. I'm not a web
> developer but would like to contribute more by writing python if there are
> any projects that need attention.
> Thanks!

Well, all projects in pydotorg need attention. I can't guide you on what is
important, because I am not a part of core team, which resides in private
list at [email protected] but for example I am working on some rather
epic and long term things in my spare time:

1. mapping of repository paths in python repository to modules

This allows to classify incoming patches. Including stats of issues/patches per
module, their lifetime and other statistics. This can be the source to guide
people and future contributions.

The proof of concept is already working:
https://bitbucket.org/techtonik/python-stdlib

2. get the stats of patches per module public

Here http://bugs.python.org/issue?@template=stats are the most generic stats
compiled by Ezio. URL is ugly, so I've added Routing API to Roundup to make
it more extendable. The goal is to deal with complexity of stdlib development
by splitting incoming flow of information by module. Another goal is
to provide a
good source of data for engineering better modules over ones that are stuck in
stdlib in their current form, because of backward compatibility.

3. research usability and dynamics of contributing

This one epic task that I unlikely to complete ever. I suspect there is
a decline in contributions (and new contributors) over the past 10 years despite
of growing Python popularity. I can name a few aspects that should affect that,
but my assumptions are not based on any data, so if I was a researcher, I'd be
interested to analyze trends over time with metrics such as:

- amount of new people registered
- amount of people who sent patches
- amount of new people who sent patches

And the major factors like these:

- introduction of CLA
- Python 3 promises and milestones
- switches of version control systems
- introduction of devguide (bounce ratio)

Additional factors that can also play a role:

- growing cultural gap core community and new generation
- evolution of communication tools
- grown startup moneychasing culture
- fears and uncertainty in open source and contributing
- more strict HR control methods employed by market
- grown market demand for Python coders
- early hiring in education


This is my domain of interests, which is not something that I
discussed with everybody before jumping in, so it is not something
that somebody requested - these are just things that I personally
see as the most useful, and most of them are connected with
usability of contribution process, because I personally believe that
involvement is very low. Too low or critically low, FWIW.
-- 
anatoly t.
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