Parse-server: Improve contribution guide

Created on 30 Dec 2020 · 4Comments · Source: parse-community/parse-server

New Issue Checklist

[x] I am not disclosing a vulnerability.
[x] I am not just asking a question.
[x] I have searched through existing issues.
[x] I can reproduce the issue with the latest version of Parse Server.

Issue Description

The Contribution Guide could benefit from an overhaul to:

be more accessible for new developers by reducing required pre-existing knowledge
mitigate bug risks by documenting processes for common changes
facilitate code quality by adding code style guidelines

The contribution guide currently only contains descriptions of the technical set-up required to make changes to Parse Server, described in way that assumes a level of pre-existing knowledge about tools and processes that has shown in some cases to discourage new developers from creating PRs. Parse is not just an entry point for new developers for its use as a backend but also when it comes to its development and making first steps into open-source contribution. A more accessible guide benefits both developers and further development of Parse.

Suggested changes

[x] Add process: Add new Parse Error -> #7075
[x] Add process: Add new Parse Server configuration parameter -> #7075
[ ] Add: Code style guide
[ ] Add: PR guide (GitHub guide is too verbose and not suitable as a reference for new developers)
[ ] Reformat document to increase readability
[ ] Rewrite guides into step-by-step instructions to help new developers

Please feel free to grab one or propose others.

Most helpful comment

@mtrezza on my first contribution, I remember that running npm run watch and then playing with npm test was not easy to understand the first time.

Today, systems like Jest can onboard the compilation to only need npm test and get rid off the npm run watch.

I know https://www.npmjs.com/package/concurrently that allow to execute 2 commands at the same time.

I found that Jasmine do not have watch mode: https://github.com/jasmine/jasmine-npm/issues/5

So by adding nodemon + concurrently + npm test + npm run watch could do the trick.

i also found that we can add the babel compiler to our jasmine.json: https://github.com/piecioshka/test-jasmine-babel/blob/master/test/jasmine.json

Moumouls on 30 Dec 2020

👍2

All 4 comments

@julianvogels could help us to improve this one 🙂 (ref: https://community.parseplatform.org/t/what-you-love-about-parse-and-also-of-the-difficulties-you-have-encountered/1140/5 )

Moumouls on 30 Dec 2020

👍1

@mtrezza on my first contribution, I remember that running npm run watch and then playing with npm test was not easy to understand the first time.

Today, systems like Jest can onboard the compilation to only need npm test and get rid off the npm run watch.

I know https://www.npmjs.com/package/concurrently that allow to execute 2 commands at the same time.

I found that Jasmine do not have watch mode: https://github.com/jasmine/jasmine-npm/issues/5

So by adding nodemon + concurrently + npm test + npm run watch could do the trick.

i also found that we can add the babel compiler to our jasmine.json: https://github.com/piecioshka/test-jasmine-babel/blob/master/test/jasmine.json

Moumouls on 30 Dec 2020

👍2

I stumbled upon a brilliant open source, multi-lingual, multi-dev-environment guide for first contributors that we could link to in our contribution guide: https://github.com/firstcontributions/first-contributions

It includes How-Tos for

Git CLI as well as GitHub Desktop
VS Code

@TomWFox what's your opinion as chief docs officer?

mtrezza on 13 Mar 2021

Looks neat, there are some parts which wouldn't apply for our projects (e.g. make changes - could cause a bit of confusion but perhaps easily outweighed by the benefit of the resource).