I wrote up a brief guide a few weeks ago about how to onboard as a DeepChem Open Source Engineer. Sharing here since it might be of interest to folks:
I’m happy to hear you’re interested in working with us as a DeepChem open source engineer! Getting started working on DeepChem can be intimidating, so I’ve put together a suggested series of exercises which will help you get started with the DeepChem codebase and introduce you to the broader community!
- Sign up for the DeepChem forums and introduce yourself on the introductions thread The Introductions Thread!
- Get onto the DeepChem gitter at https://gitter.im/deepchem/Lobby and send me a DM there to say hi! I’m usually most responsive on Gitter if you’d like to ask me questions
- Start attending the weekly DeepChem developer calls to meet other members of the community Joining the DeepChem Developer Calls
- Clone the deepchem repo and install it on your local environment.
- Work through the DeepChem tutorials locally (https://github.com/deepchem/deepchem/tree/master/examples/tutorials). Verify that you can run the code in the tutorials and try reading through them. In particular, pick 5 tutorials to work through in depth and send me your feedback about the tutorials once you’ve finished
- Once you’re comfortable with the library, make a first pull request to DeepChem. I’d suggest starting by improving the docs (https://deepchem.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) or by making improvements to the tutorials you worked through in the previous step. Check in with me beforehand on gitter if you need guidance.
- Pick an open issue on DeepChem to fix or discuss an improvement you’d like to make with me. Implement the fix, have it go through the code review process, and have it be merged in. Make sure to read the developer guidelines ahead of time (https://deepchem.readthedocs.io/en/latest/development_guide/coding.html)
Completing this full series of exercises should take about 10 hours of effort. By the end, you’ll be ready to get started building more complex DeepChem features and improvements. Happy hacking!