Gwen moved to transfem socialMay 26, 2025
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
Show threadmitchie (he/him)
@gwenthekween really interested! i use gdb for a couple of things, and now possibly being able to contribute to it is a really exciting prospect!
Jul 13, 2025 at 4:49pmWeb
Show threadGwen moved to transfem socialJul 14, 2025
@84smitch Hi! Awesome that you want to contribute ​​

My first few questions are: Do you already know you'd like to fix? if you already have something in mind, it'll always be more interesting to you, and I can have an idea of how bad it would be to solve (so that you don't end up in a multi-year rabbit hole for patch 1)
Also, what is your experience and comfort level with c/c++ and it's build systems? (we use autotools and makefiles, if that makes a difference)
And what operating system would you be using to write your contribution (I never tried contributing with Windows ,so I'd be very lost on dependencies and how to build ,but I can still be of help for the code itself)
Show threadmitchie (he/him)Jul 15, 2025
@gwenthekween thanks for following up!

i've been looking at the "good first bugs" section, and i'm interested in fixing something from the internals section. i haven't narrowed it down to a specific issue to fix, will do that once i get more acquainted to the source, if that's alright :D
i've been using C++ for both hobby projects and semester submissions (and have employed makefiles everywhere), and i'm very comfortable with it, working on a parser for C right now as a learning experience. while i haven't used autotools myself, i think i can pick it up quickly

and oh, ill be using arch for contributing. thanks for your attention to this matter :D
Show threadGwen moved to transfem socialJul 15, 2025
@84smitch awesome! I expect that you won't need to worry too much about autotools, it took me nearly 5 years until I had to touch that file, so it should be smooth sailing for the start.

For internals, there are 2 issues I can think of right now which I know are my doing ("I'll get the ball rolling and leave an issue open for new folks to contribute" situation), and so, I should be know enough to actually be helpful.

First one is the "Missing AVX support" issue, in the record subsystem. Someone else who I've mentored has submitted one patch and send interested in continuing, but I know how to avoid a collision and there are 270 instructions that still need disassembler support, so there's plenty to do.

The other is a migration from C-style "struct of function pointers" to a C++ polymorphic classes. Again, someone in mentoring is getting the lowest-hanging fruit (this is architecture specific and they are working on x86) but if you have a raspberry pi, it can be used to run tests, or I can try to run them (I have easy access to aarch64, ppc64le and s390x). The code changes should be obvious enough, the testing is more of a sanity check than anything.

You are also welcome to try and get any other issue from that list, of course! First and foremost you have to be interested in what you're solvong, second is whether I know how to solve it already or not ​​
Show threadmitchie (he/him)Jul 15, 2025
@gwenthekween hello again! gotten a bit accustomed to sourceware's antiquated design since last time

i also have some questions, is it okay with you if we move this to DMs?
Show threadGwen moved to transfem socialJul 15, 2025
@84smitch sure thing! DM away ​​ (though I may take a while to respond, this afternoon is a bit rushed)