Part of #1139
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
The documentation for new contributors is spread across several locations:
- CONTRIBUTING.md
- BUILDING.md
- Some wiki pages
- https://github.com/pmd/pmd/wiki/Newcomers%27-Guide : originally targeted for prospective summer of code students, probably can be used as generic doc for new contributors
- https://github.com/pmd/pmd/wiki/Setup-IDE
- Some website pages
- Developer resources: kind of overlaps (in scope) with CONTRIBUTING.md
- Building PMD from source: overlaps in scope with BUILDING.md
The website links back to CONTRIBUTING.md.
There's afaik no link pointing from outside of the wiki into the wiki, so those pages are less discoverable than others. The wiki pages are also marked with this notice:
Note: this is WIP - once this documentation is matured, it will be moved to the official documentation.
I think it's time we do that, especially since those wiki pages are IMO very comprehensive
So the problem statement is:
- the documentation is fragmented
- there's limited cross-linking between those fragments
- the github landing page (CONTRIBUTING.md) omits some important information (building and IDE setup) for newcomers
Describe the solution you'd like
- Keep CONTRIBUTING.md and improve it:
- Move Setup IDE from wiki into the
documentation and link from Contributing.
- Move Newcomers' Guide into
the documentation
- Remove BUILDING.md - it overlaps with
Building PMD from source.
However, CONTRIBUTING should link to it.
- Describe how to build and test (= verify) a single module without
rebuild whole PMD repository
- Document how to test SNAPSHOT version of PMD. Snapshots versions of PMD
are also published in a public maven repository, that can be used in custom
projects -> how to do this...
Part of #1139
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
The documentation for new contributors is spread across several locations:
The website links back to CONTRIBUTING.md.
There's afaik no link pointing from outside of the wiki into the wiki, so those pages are less discoverable than others. The wiki pages are also marked with this notice:
I think it's time we do that, especially since those wiki pages are IMO very comprehensive
So the problem statement is:
Describe the solution you'd like
ci will build it, regression tester comments on it, the maintainer will have a look
and provide feedback like requesting changes
Developer Resources.
documentation and link from Contributing.
the documentation
Building PMD from source.
However, CONTRIBUTING should link to it.
rebuild whole PMD repository
are also published in a public maven repository, that can be used in custom
projects -> how to do this...