Re: A proposal for code explanation sessions

[matthew sporleder <msporleder%gmail.com@localhost>]

This is a really fun idea.  Twitch and youtube make the most sense for sure.

On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 7:15 AM Rocky Hotas <rockyhotas%firemail.cc@localhost> wrote:
>
> Hello!
>
> During this year's NetBSD Annual General Meeting on IRC (May 22nd),
> several participants suggested the activation of some code tutorial
> sessions performed by the developers.
>
> NetBSD sourcecode is in fact still a mysterious place for the new
> users, or just for those who read it for the first time. According
> to the chat, it would be great if some developer could show how they
> work on the sourcecode, for example with a live session, with any
> mean: a Youtube live, or even just an IRC live session.
>
> This arouse several difficulties: not only as regards the lack of
> time, but also the difficulties involved in understanding what a
> developer is doing (some automated operations, with obvious meaning
> for a skilled developer, are meaningless for someone else).
>
> I would like to re-open this discussion and, in particular, I would
> like to suggest something maybe simpler. Instead of explaining why
> some portion of code is being updated and how, it would be very
> useful to show and explain the code just as it is. For example, a
> volunteer developer could take an important, well known sourcecode
> file, and explain it line by line; as a starting trivial file,
> something like src/bin/hostname/hostname.c can be considered, then
> moving to something more complicated like src/sbin/init/init.c.
>
> While I'm sure it's not possible to actually explain every line,
> the principles used to write the code "that way", to place that
> function in that point, to call that function with those argument
> values, could be shown.
>
> I believe that some gentle introduction to kernel code would be
> extremely useful to the whole community, giving anyone more means
> to craft the code by himself, to improve it, to learn and eventually
> (why not?) to become a developer. It would be a huge enhancement
> for an "open-source" community, because the code would not only be
> available, but also comprehensible.
>
> What do you think about it? Would some developer be available for
> this?
>
> Bye!
>
> Rocky