[Cuis-dev] Collecting a "Help Wanted" document - Re: Looking to help Cuis development

[Juan Vuletich]

Hi Rubén, Folks,

(below)

On 3/26/2024 7:31 PM, Ruben Bohorquez via Cuis-dev wrote:
> Hello! I'm currently enrolled in a class that uses mainly Cuis, and 
> they give us extra credits if we contribute to the development of 
> CuisUniversity. Since I do not currently have any specific idea as to 
> what to contribute, I figured I might as well ask the wider community 
> whether they need help with a particular project.
>
> I already have experience with Smalltalk (had an OOP class with the 
> same teacher before which also used Cuis), and I also contributed to 
> Cuis before. So, if anyone needs help with a feature, tests, or 
> anything really, do let me know!

This is a question that gets asked from time to time. Maybe old timers 
could also want some interesting/useful problem to work on.

I suggest that we collect a list of projects or areas where improvements 
would be good. We could host that in a .md document in the main repo, or 
perhaps a wiki page at GitHub. In any case, what follows is the first 
sketch I could come up with. Please answer with your own ideas, comments 
and corrections.

Rubén, feel fre to pick any!


Ideas for helping Cuis
=================

Beginner level
--------------------
- Read the Cuis book. Understand every detail. Do every exercise. 
Suggest corrections and improvements.
- Use Cuis. Play with it. Try every dev tool. Report on your experience. 
Write documentation.
- Do your own version of the Spacewar! project. Handle it like a real 
project, evolving your own version of the code and publishing it at 
GitHub or somewhere. Report on your experience. Document your process. 
Suggest enhancements to tools.
- Read the the stuff at 
https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev/tree/master/Documentation 
. Suggest corrections and improvements.
- Review www.cuis.st. Check consistency with 
https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev and 
https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis6-2

Intermediate level
-------------------------
- Review / test / use Cuis packages related to Networking, Web clients, 
Web servers. Build toy examples using them. Report on the experience. 
Write documentation.
- Review / test / use Cuis packages you find interesting. Build toy 
examples using them. Report on the experience. Write documentation.
- Understand Morphic, and the Cuis specific aspects. Build a game. 
Something like Pac-Man for instance. Write documentation.
- Review the pluggable GUI widgets in Cuis. Compare with other Smalltalk 
dialects. Compare with non-Smalltalk widget libraries and kits. What is 
missing?

Advanced level
----------------------
- Compare the various possible approaches to building web servers and 
web clients. Write documentation.
- Take the SVG package and turn it into and end user Vector Graphics 
designer application. Like a baby Inkscape.
- Review and update Sound and MIDI. Build a small music instrument.
- Build something like the old PhotoSqueak based on Cuis ImageProcessing 
package.
- Implement new GUI widgets for Cuis. A dropdown list, for instance. Or 
a multi column l
- Find a way to assess and describe which community packages work with 
each Cuis release (6.2, 6.3)
- Review and clean or update as needed the packages included in the main 
repo
- Check and correct or eliminate CorePackages.pck.st and AllPackages.pck.st
- Check and correct AdditionalPackagesForCuis.md. Assess quality and 
upToDate-ness.ist.

Advanced+ level
-----------------------
- Design and build a framework for extensible and user configurable tool 
menus and keyboard shortcuts
- Ephemerons (VM support is there)
- Non-blocking FFI (VM suppoort is there)
- Unicode collation

Thanks!

-- 
Juan Vuletich
cuis.st
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