Gecko Coding Help Wanted

Take a look through LXR, and you'll realize that Mozilla's source code is a big place.

Huge, actually. Overwhelmingly large. You could spend years in it and still get lost.

You're up for some adventure, though, and you're set to take the plunge.

But where? Where's a good place to start? Someplace easy and straightforward, so you can get a feel for the lay of the code. Reports in Bugzilla can be deceptive, deceptively hard... or deceptively easy. So we've compiled a list of pointers —from the experts. There's plenty to do, and we sure could use the help. Here are some fixes that are straightforward; they just need some time and attention:

deCOMtamination
Convert weird, ugly and inefficient method signatures to more natural C++ method signatures. It's really improved code readability, reduced code size, and sped up performance. It's kind of tedious but it's extremely valuable and will help you learn the way around the codebase. We've done a lot, but there's a lot more to do. roc is willing to work closely with anyone with reasonable C++ experience to get them started on this. Just send him mail.

Not up for coding yet? Join the Gecko BugAThon and help save Gecko engineers from imminent doom!

Original Document Information

  • Author(s): fantasai
  • Last Updated Date: May 4, 2004
  • Copyright Information: Portions of this content are © 1998–2007 by individual mozilla.org contributors; content available under a Creative Commons license | Details.