Hey you. Do you like low level programming? would you like to contribute to a large and well established project? Because I'm always looking to help new contributors getting started on GDB! It uses C++, but you may also end up needing to remove abstraction layers, so there's tons of things not-C++ to think about, if you want to.

I know that contributing to the GNU Debugger may sound like it's something that would be incredibly hard, or that you need ungodly amounts of knowledge to improve, because that's literally how I felt before sending my first patch, but the truth is, the project was developed by people (humans and otherwise), so silly bugs will abound, and simple oversights will need correcting. There is stuff for every level of programmer to do, from "I've worked on the kernel for 20 years" to "this is my 1st year in college and I'm not scared of large projects"

And here's the kicker, I want more contributors to the GDB project. So, if you are interested in this at all, you can hit me up and I will do my best to help you get setup to contribute (from compiling locally, to setting up git-send-email, running tests) and then help you understand the bugs, the code, and how to make a good commit message (to GDB's standards anyway). I've literally done code-walks with other mentees in the past, I eager to share as much of my experience as you would like to have! and I do my best to be ADHD/autistic friendly, since I'm AuDHD myself and would have really loved a mentor that did that for me in the past...

So... yeah, don't be afraid to reach out!

EDIT: Hi everyone! I made a poll on why people don't contribute, please vote and share here:
https://kitsunes.club/notes/aas2it3uwq I'm editing this so that everyone that liked and boosted the post notices and votes on the poll.
Gwen, the Fops :therian::itits: (@gwenthekween)

Hi Fedi verse, it is I the GDB fops again! I want to collect data about why people aren't contributing to GDB. If you haven't contributed to GDB, please take a moment to vote and boost for reach. This poll accepts multiple answers, but please only vote on the ones that would actually get you to try to contribute if they were changed This data will be used to understand and hopefully figure out ways to improve the project for people who would like to participate. Feel free to expand on your answer! Why have you not contributed? (📊) RE: Hey you. Do you like low level programming? would you like to contribute to a large and well established project? Because I'm always looking to help new contributors getting started on GDB! It uses C++, but you may also end up needing to remove abstraction layers, so there's tons of things not-C++ to think about, if you want to. I know that contributing to the GNU Debugger may sound like it's something that would be incredibly hard, or that you need ungodly amounts of knowledge to improve, because that's literally how I felt before sending my first patch, but the truth is, the project was developed by people (humans and otherwise), so silly bugs will abound, and simple oversights will need correcting. There is stuff for every level of programmer to do, from "I've worked on the kernel for 20 years" to "this is my 1st year in college and I'm not scared of large projects" And here's the kicker, I want more contributors to the GDB project. So, if you are interested in this at all, you can hit me up and I will do my best to help you get setup to contribute (from compiling locally, to setting up git-send-email, running tests) and then help you understand the bugs, the code, and how to make a good commit message (to GDB's standards anyway). I've literally done code-walks with other mentees in the past, I eager to share as much of my experience as you would like to have! and I do my best to be ADHD/autistic friendly, since I'm AuDHD myself and would have really loved a mentor that did that for me in the past... So... yeah, don't be afraid to reach out! EDIT: Hi everyone! I made a poll on why people don't contribute, please vote and share here: https://kitsunes.club/notes/aas2it3uwq I'm editing this so that everyone that liked and boosted the post notices and votes on the poll.

KitsuClub
@gwenthekween hey!! I'd love to get into this! I'm a C++ dev. I just quit my job and I've been looking for projects to dive into!
@feline Cool! Have you used GDB directly? Do you have anything in mind that you'd be interested in contributing?
@gwenthekween yes definitely I've used it directly. I work on C++ codebases and it's not my preference to interface with it through an IDE or anything like that. I'd be interested to know where help is most needed. I'm interested in transitioning to embedded development so building system-level knowledge would be neat for me!
@feline I think what we need the most is user feedback to be completely honest. As long time developers, we end up learning a lot of what GDB can do and how to work around what it can,t and it's good to hear from people who don't have that kind of experience.

That said, we have a list of bugs marked as "good first bug" that you could take a look at[1]. Taking a quick look over these, bugs 16269, 17548 and 29784 are pretty gdb-specific (how we handle commands) but seem easy; and bugs 21814 and 17346 have more to do with dealing with the binary directly (both of them involve dealing with some disassembler) (yes, we have more than one disassembler, I hate it so much)

Reference is screen-reader unfriendly
[1]
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=SUSPENDED&bug_status=WAITING&bug_status=REOPENED&keywords=good-first-bug%2C%20&keywords_type=allwords&list_id=92887&order=Importance&product=gdb&query_format=advanced
Making sure you're not a bot!