System Crafters Live! - Can We Fix a Bug in Emacs?

In this stream, we'll attempt to find and fix a bug in Emacs! Through this process, we'll learn how to clone and build Emacs, find bugs to work on, write and test changes to the code, and prepare a patch to be submitted to the development mailing list. Let's find out how difficult it really is (or isn't)!

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Music credits:

[usopenplayer]

This is the most important kind of tutorial for at least two reasons:

1: When I bork my emacs, which is often, I feel helpless, and there are very few good debugging resources that aren't dry and too complicated for beginners like me.

2. This gets more people trained up to fix bugs, which helps all of us have a better experience with emacs overall.

[netom]

David, I honestly don't understand you disappointment with yourself.

The title of the episode was a question. The answer to that question is: almost. You did not promise success, you promised to take a stab at the challenge and you delivered precisely that.

You made good progress with multiple bugs in just 2 hours. We got to see many steps of the process already. We could see how easy is it to cross the Elisp/C boundary, how to use the debbugs, etc

I still think your screencasts are the best, exactly because they are realistic, since you don't rehearse it and don't try to cover any struggle. I'm often feel baffled, why I can't solve things easier or faster. Seeing you experiencing similar situations is a real conciliation consolation for me.

You also ask for help and do take advice from the audience. That's a good example of how to be a team player and how not to get stuck in rabbit holes. I wish my younger colleagues would do that more often, instead of just wasting time running in circles, randomly guessing and just trying shit and ending up with garbage code, which has to be discussed in PRs or pairing sessions anyway.

You were also tired, so we could see how that impedes mental capacity. I think you have demonstrated high levels of stamina and still powered through the session, with the aid of some red bull. Next time you can employ other tactics too. For example, you can just get up and walk around the room for half a minute. Stretch a little bit or do a few squats. The audience will have a chance to step out to the toilet or just chat with each other a bit more.
it's not set in stone that we must see your face or hear your voice nonstop for hours...
Even longer University lectures have breaks after 50-60 minutes...

[seriousjan]

In such code base it is ok to only locate error and get some tryouts in two hours

[williamswaney]

Curious, why can't you easily assign the copyright to the FSF?