Guide on the "social aspects" of compiler development

[rylev]

I think it would be useful to have a short guide on the social aspects of getting into compiler development. Some of this information already exists in the getting started section, but I think it might be good to include this information before mentioning anything technical. I know people with deep compiler experience (e.g., from the C++ world) who have found it hard to contribute not because of technical issues, but because of social issues (e.g., Zulip is very busy and it's hard to know where to even begin).

This would answer questions like the following:

• How can I get involved?
  • a short description of particular efforts that are pretty beginner friendly (e.g., issue triage, prioritization, compiler perf testing, etc.)
• Where do I get involved?
  • A short guide to zulip including relevant places to subscribe to (e.g., t-compiler/help, t-compiler/meetings, t-compiler/wg-prioritization, etc.)
• How do I find good issues to work on?
• Who can I ask for help?

[petrochenkov]

Zulip is very busy and it's hard to know where to even begin

Then perhaps it's not a place where people need to be directed initially?
The development happens on GitHub, and submitting a PR with some fix, or asking for an implementation advice on some issue is all that is required to start contributing.
Zulip starts when you get into management and working groups, you can contribute for years without being involved in that.

[rylev]

@petrochenkov I think that depends on what type of contribution you'd like to make. There are plenty of ways to contribute to the compiler and core tooling without every making a code contribution. So while I agree that this way may make sense for some, "just submit a pull request" is poor advice to many.

[jyn514]

Personally I like to talk to contributors on Zulip so I can give feedback faster. Trying to have a conversation on Github is painful because you often end up having to refresh to see the latest comments, and autohiding comments makes it hard to search.