Google Code In 2018/background
Getting set up on IRC
We use IRC for much of our communication. Unfortunate, Freenode, our IRC server, has been under attack by trolls of late, so we have had to lock down our channels. Therefore, you'll need to create a "registered account" to login.
To register on Freenode:
/msg NickServ REGISTER password youremail@example.com
Once you are registered, you may join the #sugar channel:
/join #sugar
Please contact walter @ sugarlabs.org if you have any questions.
Basics: Attribution and Licensing
Read Attribution and Licensing, as both are important for all submissions.
Setting up a Sugar desktop environment
There are several options for setting up the Sugar desktop environment for development, depending on what equipment you have;
| Your Equipment | Your Operating System | Our Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| You have only one computer and don't want to erase it | Linux, Windows, macOS, or iOS | Install virtualisation software, make a new virtual machine and install Sugar Live Build, Sugar on a Stick, Ubuntu, Fedora, or Debian. |
| Linux | Install Sugar packages from your distribution, see Ubuntu, Fedora or Debian. For other distributions, contact your distribution community. | |
| You have another computer that can be erased | Doesn't matter | Install Sugar Live Build, Sugar on a Stick, Ubuntu, Fedora, or Debian. |
What's the difference between Live Build, Sugar on a Stick and the various Linux options?
| Live Build (based on Debian) | Sugar on a Stick (based on Fedora) | Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sugar desktop user experience on startup | yes, 0.112 | yes, 0.110 | no, must install packages |
| Good for Sugar activity development | yes | no, must install packages | no, must install packages |
| Good for Sugar desktop module development | yes, source code included | no, must install git and use rpmbuild | no, must install packages |
| Works on a spare computer | yes | yes | yes |
| Works as a Virtual Machine | yes | yes | yes |
See also Setup a development environment.
Getting started with coding in Sugar
Sugar development is in either Python or JavaScript languages.
- For the JavaScript language, you will need knowledge of;
- JavaScript;
- HTML5;
- web browsers;
- web design; and,
- web deployment.
- For the Python language, you will need knowledge of;
- Python;
- the PyGObject package;
- the Python bindings for GTK+ 3; and
- the Gtk-3.0 section of the PyGObject API Reference.
- For both, you will need knowledge of Sugar activity development, see the book Make Your Own Sugar Activities!
Python programmers, you must run pep8 and pyflakes on your code before submitting your patches.
Getting started with GIT
Some knowledge of git is important as your work will be submitted to our git repositories. The basic mechanism is a pull-request (PR), which is explained in Contributing.
It is required that you follow the steps outlined on the Contributing page when doing coding and documentation tasks in GCI.
GitHub provides a tutorial. There are many other guides to GIT as well.
Our old bug tracker is https://bugs.sugarlabs.org, but these days, we mostly report bugs using the issues feature of GitHub. (See https://guides.github.com/features/issues/ for details on GitHub Issues.)
Setting up a Sugarizer environment
Use your computer. See also #Getting started with Sugarizer.=== Getting started with Sugarizer ===
Sugar Web Framework is the JavaScript Framework for Sugar. Sugarizer is a subset of Sugar that allow running activities developed with Sugar Web Framework on any web browser. Sugarizer is also available as Android, iOS, Firefox OS and Chrome Web App.
Getting a wiki account
Some tasks require that you make edits to this wiki for which you'll need an account. Please email walter @ sugarlabs . org to request an account.
Getting help
Got a problem? Ask your mentors, ask other students, or ask the Sugar Labs community.
The Sugar Labs community is large, and there are people who are not mentors in the contest. Mentors are listed. Everyone else you talk with may be a non-mentor.
As part of Sugar Labs community, non-mentors are to treat students in accord with the Code of Conduct, and as if they are new to Sugar Labs.
Students should keep in mind that some people are non-mentors, and cannot see the contest tasks, contest progress, dates, or information about students. When communicating widely, be sure to;
- introduce yourself, the first time;
- tell us what your task is, without relying on a link to the task (because we probably can't see it);
- talk about the task as if you want to do it yourself, not because of the contest; and,
- defend your technical decisions without using the contest as a defence.
Non-mentors may give good guidance on technical decisions, but bad guidance on how they think a task is judged. Always consult with your mentors as well.