1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
|
* Contributing to the Mono project
There are many ways in which you can help in the Mono project:
<ul>
* <b>Programmers:</b> You can work on a free
implementation of the <a
href="class-library.html">class libraries</a>, the
<a href="runtime.html">runtime engine</a>, <a
href="tools.html">the tools</a>, the <a
href="testing.html">testing framework</a>
* <b>Writers:</b> You can help us bywriting <a
href="documentation.html">documentation</a>.
</ul>
Those are just broad things that need to be worked on, but
something that would help tremendously would be to help with
small duties in the project that need to be addressed.
You can see what needs to be done in the class libraries <a href="class-status.html">here</a>
* IRC Channel
Many developers get together on the <b>#mono</b> irc channel
on the <b>irc.gnome.org</b> server.
** To start contributing
As a programmer, you can contribute in three different scenarios to Mono:
<ul>
* If you only have Linux/Unix.
* If you only have Windows.
* If you have both Linux and Windows.
</ul>
You might also want to check our <a href="#setup">common
setups</a> section that describes some common setups that people
use while working on Mono.
*** Contributing to the class library, regression tests or the compiler
This only requires Windows currently.
To start developing classes or to contribute to the compiler,
you only need Windows and the .NET Framework 1.0 SDK. Please notice
that you do not need Visual Studio (although you can use it if
you want). The .NET Framework SDK requires some version of
Windows XP or Windows NT. If you are running Windows 98, 95
or Me, you could use instead the <a
href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?url=/downloads/sample.asp?url=/msdn-files/027/001/829/msdncompositedoc.xml">.NET Redist package</a>, but it
lacks the documentation browser and the ildasm program (C#, VB, JScript and IL
assembler are included).
You can get it <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?url=/downloads/sample.asp?url=/msdn-files/027/000/976/msdncompositedoc.xml&frame=true">here</a>
If you are new to .NET, writing regression tests is a good way
of starting to contribute: it will help you get used to C# as
well as getting comfortable with the .NET APIs.
This helps because at this point you might be the best
qualified person to fix a problem found by the regression
test, or you might have a new class to implement in the .NET
world that only has a test suite.
To get started writing tests see the <a href="testing.html">Test Suite</a>
section. <a href="mono-contribution-howto">Here</a> there is a good All-In-One introduction to the art of writing tests.
*** Contributing to the runtime engine
This only requires Linux, currently some tasks are easier if you
have access to Windows as well.
Here are a few things you can do:
<ul>
* Port the runtime to other architectures.
* Port the runtime to other operating systems.
* Finish the IL code verifier in the runtime.
* Hack the JIT, improve the code generator, add new
pattern rules, improve the register allocator.
* Implement the debugging interfaaces
</ul>
** Bug reporting
If you find bugs in Mono, please make sure you enter a bug
report so we can keep track of problems in Mono.
To enter bug reports go to <a href="http://bugzilla.ximian.com">
http://bugzilla.ximian.com</a> and enter bug reports against
your favorite component (Mono, Runtime, C# compiler).
You can review the list of current bugs by going <a href="http://bugzilla.ximian.com/buglist.cgi?product=Mono%2FClass+Libraries&product=Mono%2FMCS&product=Mono%2FRuntime&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&email1=&emailtype1=substring&emailassigned_to1=1&email2=&emailtype2=substring&emailreporter2=1&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&short_desc=&short_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&long_desc_type=substring&bug_file_loc=&bug_file_loc_type=substring&keywords=&keywords_type=anywords&op_sys_details=&op_sys_details_type=substring&version_details=&version_details_type=substring&cmdtype=doit&order=%27Importance%27&form_name=query">here</a>
** Small tasks
A few smaller tasks are here, dropped in no particular order:
<ul>
* <b>Mono/doc and web site:</b> They need to be
packaged up in the official `distribution'
* Adding serialization support to all the classes.
We have many classes, but we have not implemented in
many cases the serialization and re-incarnation support in
them (this is pretty straight forward code, and simple,
but there is a lot to be done here).
</ul>
* Emacs support
Brad Merryl's C# mode for Emacs is available: <a
href="http://www.cybercom.net/~zbrad/DotNet/Emacs/">http://www.cybercom.net/~zbrad/DotNet/Emacs/</a>
* Books on C# and DotNet.
<ul>
* Dotnet Books (<a href="http://www.dotnetbooks.com">http://www.dotnetbooks.com</a>)
* Dotnet Resources (<a href="http://www.dotnetexperts.com/resources/">
http://www.dotnetexperts.com/resources</a>)
* O'Reilly C# Essentials (<a href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/csharpess/">
http://www.oreally.com/catalog/csharpess</a>)
* O'Really .NET Essentials (<a href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dotnetfrmess/">
http://www.oreally.com/catalog/dotnetfrmess</a>)
</ul>
<a name="setup">
* Common Setups
People running both Linux and Windows while contributing to
Mono use a number of tricks to increase their productivity.
Scenarios:
<ul>
* <b>Linux host and Windows host</b>
The Windows file system is shared (right click on
your hard drive icon, and select sharing, allow this
to be shared).
The Windows machine has the required build tools
(cygwin, and the .NET framework). On the Windows
machine, you want to setup the ssh server (run the
ssh-host-config program to configure your ssh) and
run it (from a cygwin terminal, type: /usr/sbin/sshd).
From the Linux side, you want to mount the Windows
file system, using something like this:
<tt><pre>
mount -t smbfs -o uid=miguel,username="Miguel de Icaza" "//quack/c$" /mnt
</pre></tt>
In the above example, my Linux user name is
`miguel', and this will allow this user to have
read/write access to the share.
The host name is `quack', and the name of the share
is `c$' (that is the C: partition).
The file system is accessible on /mnt.
You can perform your cvs update and cvs commits from
the /mnt directory, and run Emacs or your favorite
Linux text editor on the Unix side in this way.
Then from another terminal, you can ssh into your
Windows box using ssh, like this: ssh "Miguel de Icaza@quack"
</ul>
* Special Note
If you have looked at Microsoft's implementation of .NET or
their shared source code, you may not be able to contribute
to Mono. Details will follow when we know more about this.
In general be careful when you are implementing free software
and you have access to proprietary code. We need to make sure
that we are not using someone else's copyrighted code
accidentally.
Please do not use the <b>ildasm</b> program to disassemble
proprietary code when you are planning to reimplement a class
for Mono. If you have done this, we might not be able to use
your code.
Please stick to published documentation for implementing any
classes.
|
