[sldev] [Policy] C++ N00bs exploring the client source code?

[Dale Mahalko]

Cross-posting from the Open Source Meeting Agenda page:


How do you (Rob / LL staff / and the rest of the SL-Dev professionals)
feel about relative C++ noobs (*waves!*) jumping headfirst into the
client source to explore it? Do you prefer that only people with years
of prior C++ experience try to be involved with the open source
project? ("Come back when you've actually used a multimap in a
program!")

I am wondering if showing up at the open source meeting and asking
what may seem as "stupid beginner's questions" would be perceived as
annoying and a waste of your / LL-Staffs' professional time. (For
example, why is ll_apr_file used for open/read/write/etc rather than
just apr_file? Is llapr.cpp a shim library, to make transitioning from
the LLLFS easier? And IS the LLLFS being replaced by the APR? I can't
find any official coding policy or notes pointing in that direction.
Is it okay to discuss this in SLDev or not?)

My interest and involvement in the source is mostly because I want the
VFS expunged, and the overall caching performance improved... but
since this coding task is apparently not high on anyone else's agenda,
I guess there's room for a QBASIC / LSL2 / Apple II 6502-assembly
programmer to explore the issue. (Note, the only thing I've ever
threaded is a needle.)

- Scalar Tardis / Dale Mahalko