Code sections and gnucash projects (was Re: Team building)

Wed Mar 12 15:33:37 CST 2003

On March 12, 2003 11:03 am, Kevin Benton wrote:
> Seeing recent responses, it seems that there's a heavy need on the
> documentation side, specifically related to helping bring other new
> programmers on-board before we go recruiting them.  Does that sound
> right?
>
> Having gotten at least some concensus, can I get some help identifying
> the major functional sections of the code (whether or not documentation
> has been produced for it)?  I'll start an OpenOffice spreadsheet to list
> those areas along with a couple of columns on programmer and user
> documentation and who is currently "owns" (as a lead) that section of
> code so we have a resource to go to when we get stuck.

An excellent idea, I'll get back to it.  The result should go on a web page, 
which brings me to another documentation "problem":  Web site write access.  
All info in the "Developer Information" section of the web site should be 
editable by any developper.  Perhaps we can move this section to sourceforge, 
so we don't bother Linas with write access issues.  We can then use your list 
to update "The Road Ahead" and "Project Goals".  

So here is a start, everyone, feel free to correct, add yourself, remove 
yourself and add items.  Project leads, please list active contributors.  I 
focussed on non-coding jobs.  Please note that Derek could pretty much be 
listed everywhere, but I'll let him list himself where he wants to work, 
since he already does work everywhere.

---Non-coding jobs:---

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web site maintainer
Description:  Improving the website and keeping it up to date.  
Lives in: http://www.gnucash.org
Current lead: Chris Lyttle <chris at wilddev.net> 
Urgent needs: ? Chris may want help or a replacement.  Can easily be done by 
one or more motivated user with reasonnable HTML skills.
Skills: HTML
Doc status:  A procedure to gain access is needed.  May require a partial or 
complete web site move.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gnucash FAQ
Description:  Set-up and maintain a FAQ-O-Matic or other system to collect 
fraquently asked questions and answers that don't easely fit into 
documentation.
Lives in: 
Current lead: none
Urgent needs: Someone to set it up 
Skills: Whatever system is chosen
Doc status:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
User documentation
Description:  Documentation available by using the help browser.
Lives in: gnucash-docs CVS module.
Current lead: Chris Lyttle <chris at wilddev.net>
Urgent needs:  User documentation writers.  Patches are best, but 
documentation in plain text is better that no contribution.
Skills: Technical writing, Docbook (not essential)
Doc status:  Hacking documentation adequate.  A quick step by step for simple 
hacking/spelling correction would be usefull.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translations
Description:  Handling the different .po files to get gnucash to run in 
multiple language.  
Lives in: po/
Current lead: Christian Stimming <stimming at tuhh.de>
Urgent needs: Translators for existing but incomplete languages, and for new 
translations.  
Skills: Need to know how to read english and write in your own language.
Doc status: ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Developper documentation
Description:  Doxygen developper documentation for functions and design.
Lives in: src/doc/
Current lead: Benoit Grégoire <bock at step.polytmtl.ca> ?
Active contributors:  Christian Stimming <stimming at tuhh.de>
				All coders (hopefully)
Urgent needs:  Consolidate existing documentation and write documentation for 
all public functions in gnucash (and eventually private fucntions too)
	-People to integrate the info in the gnucash-design info pages.  (Minimal C 
knowledge needed)
	-People to integrate the varions README in the source tree.
	-Someone to handle/document the scheme side of things.  Aparently the tools 
are already there, but few people know that.
Skills: Technical writing, minimal knowledge of C, doxygen (easy to learn), 
scheme (for the scheme side)
Doc status:  Needs a quick style guide, and FAQ about what to put in the 
header of the files so that doxygen will include it in the right place.  In 
the meantime, look at the .c and .h files in src/import-export/ for examples.
Need documentation on the scheme documentation system.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evangelist
Description:  Press contact, issues press releases.  Handle communications 
with distro to see if they have included Gnucash, if they had trouble, set up 
a way for them to send us their bug tracher entries or patches.  Collect the 
emails of their packagers.
Lives in: 
Current lead: none
Urgent needs: Someone 
Skills:  Good interpersonal and writing skills
Doc status:

---Semi-Coding jobs:---

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Build manager
Description: Building and releasing tarballs, communication with packagers. 
Lives in: 
Current lead: Chris Lyttle <chris at wilddev.net>
Current contributors: ?
Urgent needs: Packagers (Need to know the packaging system of your OS of 
choice.
Skills:  GNU build tools (autoconf, automake, libtool), packaging systems 
(rpm, apt, fink, etc.)
Doc status: ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Build system maintainer
Description: Gnucash is a big piece of software, with a complex build system.
Current lead: ?
Current contributors: Chris Lyttle <chris at wilddev.net>
				Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu>
Urgent needs: ?
Skills:  GNU build tools (autoconf, automake, libtool)
Doc status: ?

---Coding jobs:---

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Engine
Description:  Core data manipulation.  
Lives in: src/engine/
Current lead: ?
Current contributors: ?
Urgent needs: ?
Skills:  C
Doc status: Started but incomplete.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backend
Description:  Permanent storage interface.  File, db, RPC, etc.
Lives in: src/backend/
Current lead: ?
Current contributors: Matthew Vanecek <mevanecek at yahoo.com> (postgres)
Urgent needs: ?
Skills:  C, postgress, XML
Doc status: ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Small business functionnality
Description:  A/R, A/P, etc.
Lives in: src/business/
Current lead: Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu>
Current contributors: none
Urgent needs: ?
Skills:  ?
Doc status: ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gnc module
Description: API to write new gnucash modules
Lives in: src/gnc-module
Current lead: ?
Current contributors: ?
Urgent needs: ?
Skills:  Scheme, C
Doc status: Not started, obsolete docs exists.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Import-export
Description:  The generic import facilities, and protocol specific modules.
Lives in: src/import-export
Current lead: Benoit Grégoire <bock at step.polytmtl.ca>
Current contributors: Christian Stimming <stimming at tuhh.de> (HBCI)
				Benoit Grégoire <bock at step.polytmtl.ca> (OFX)
				Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> (Reluctant maintainer of QIF)
				Chris Morgan <cmorgan at alum.wpi.edu> (Bayes destination account matching)
Urgent needs: A scheme coder (with a little C) to integrate the new 
qif-io-core (scheme) with the GUI and transaction matching facilities (C) 
Skills:  Scheme (for qif), C (the rest), gtk (the GUI)
Doc status: Complete for generic, ofx, and hbci.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Register
Description: Register GUI
Lives in: src/register
Current lead: ?
Current contributors: ?
Urgent needs: ?
Skills: ?
Doc status: none ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reports
Description: Report API and the different reports
Lives in: src/report
Current lead: ?
Current contributors: ?
Urgent needs: Better docs
Skills: Scheme
Doc status: ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tax module
Description:  US tax module
Lives in: src/tax
Current lead: ?
Current contributors: ?
Urgent needs: ?
Skills: ?
Doc status: none
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scheduled transactions
Description:
Lives in: src/engine, GUI
Current lead: Joshua Sled <jsled at asynchronous.org>   
Current contributors: ?
Urgent needs: Bug fixes
Skills: ?
Doc status: ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gnome 2 port
Description: Port gnucash to gnome 2 and gnome 2 dependencies
Lives in: Everywhere
Current lead: Needs one
Current contributors: TomF <TomF at sjpc.org>
				Chris Morgan <cmorgan at alum.wpi.edu> 
Urgent needs: Project lead
Skills: gtk, gnome, guile, C
Doc status: ?

For copy-paste...:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description:
Lives in: 
Current lead: ?
Current contributors: ?
Urgent needs: ?
Skills: ?
Doc status: ?

Darn, that was longuer than I tought.  All this really needs some kind of 
database.
-- 
Benoit Grégoire
http://step.polymtl.ca/~bock/