Lkates:dps909

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Assignment 1

I'd like to figure out how to do that "quote from another article" thing I always see on Wikipedia, where it says "from main article XXX: (text)", so I can snip a part of my A1.

In any case, read up on my trouble filled but ultimately sucessful build.

Assignment 2

(Here will be the From Main Article clip of why I chose Assignment 2)

My project: "Avoid_loading_the_same_page_twice"_Extension

Newsgroup Summaries

I'm doing the summary of the newsgroup mozilla.dev.platform

I've created this template to make the creation of each week's page a bit easier. It is based on Deb Richardson's templates, but are more generalized. They have no data, just "insert stuff here" marks.

Open Source Symposium

Did you know that it's taking place on the Friday before my birthday? Yay, me.

Full details of my experince in my report.

That Summary Thing

RDF

Mozilla TestDay

Friday, November 3rd, 2006

(Note: Readding the info, since it seems to have gone to /dev/null!)

This test day was meant to test Firefox 1.5.0.8. I decided to do BST tests.

When I first started, I was unsure where to begin. I took the inititive and read through the Mozdev entry on test day. It told me almost everything, except for the build ID-- and how to get it.

The nice people on IRC were able to point me to the Nightly Tester Tools. Once they were installed, I knew I was working with 2006102516. I posted that to the channel for the benefit of others.

Once that was done, I went straight to the testing. I chose to do Plugins. I chose to do that since I didn't have any plug-ins installed already. (I use Mozilla rather than Firefox, so I didn't have to worry about nerfing profiles, either)

For the most part, all my test ran smoothly. I didn't encounter any tests that flat-out failed. However, I came across several where the text in the test differed from the text in the actual browser menus.

Since I was on #testday on IRC, I was able to ask what to do with tests that were technically incorrect, but that weren't fails. I was told to file a Pass with info in the comments field.

I did find one odd bug that had to do with how my Firefox reacted to mailto: fields, but after consulting with tracy, it looked like it came down to the configuration of my system.

Overall, I found the testday to be... well... neat. I can definately see the usefulness of such a test day. Even if everyone does a little bit, with hundreds or thousands of "little bits" being done, a build will get far more indepth analysis than any one person could ever give it.

Friday, December 1, 2006

Time to do some Q&A tests Calendar. I downloaded Calendar on both my laptop (win2000), and on a school computer (win2003), for variety.

From the IRC channel, I chose build Calendar (2006-11-30-04-trunk)

I chose to do Import/Export tests. And lo and behold, the first test I grabbed-- problem!

When I tried to import a .csv file, on either of my systems, the program barfed and crashed. The more technical details are located in the Bugzilla bug I filed. To date, the bug is still "open". I have to admit, it's been kinda neat seeing that something I started actually being worked on. Makes me feel like I'm actually part of, y'know... it.

What I Learned

Open Source in General

• Open source isn't just done In The Basement. There are people who have made real, viable careers from open source. They've partnered with large corporations. They've made advertising revenue. They've used OS as a way to showcase themselves, which have lead to "real jobs".
• Its okay to ask questions. I came into this project with zero knowledge of the whole process. How do I start an extension? What IS an extension? How do I look at the code? How do I compile? Etc. I learned how to ask questions on IRC-- and how to ask them again if needed. The answer is out there, and with a large enough community, you can even get someone to answer "what is printf?". (You may have to suffer through a couple RTFMs, but someone will eventually point you to documentation, or tell you what %d does). Be persistant, but not annoying. ;)
• Other things, as discussed in class.

Technical Things

• Extensions: I now know what an extension is, how to start one, how to install one once built.
• Xulrunner: What it is, how it is a platform, how it interacts with javascript
• IRC: How to use it for more than social communications, how it is still very relevant in modern days
• Wiki: Everything I know about wiki-doing I learned in this course. How to format pages, properly link to others, build tables, use breadcrumbs, and more. There's still tons to learn! I'm hoping to employ a wiki to help me do worldbuilding when I get back to fiction writing.
• lxr: How to use lxr and other forked tools to browse and search through the (massive!) Mozilla code.
• Subversion: Using a revision-tracking tool, rather than doing it manually.