what is a pull request and a branch? I have been reading about folks doing a pull request and branches and do not understand.
?Thanks?
Barry

Google says:
A pull request – also referred to as a merge request – is an event that takes place in software development when a contributor/developer is ready to begin the process of merging new code changes with the main project repository.

(I also learn with the help of google.)
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Gyula HA3HZ

开云体育

A little more:
Programs published on github cannot be modified directly by other programmers, so pull requests are requested.
If the original author accepts this and incorporates it into his own program, then it is possible to talk about program development and get access to it.
By the way, if you want to try it, you can modify it according to the description, at your own risk.
But I recommend this to someone who knows why he's doing what he's doing.
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Gyula HA3HZ

On Tue, Jan 2, 2024 at 01:15 PM, HA3HZ wrote:

A pull request – also referred to as a merge request – is an event that takes place in software development when a contributor/developer is ready to begin the process of merging new code changes with the main project repository.

All true.?

The sbitx code is in github at??.

The list of pending pull requests (often known as PRs) is at??

Github documentation has a better (IMO) description.

Pull requests let you tell others about changes you've pushed to a branch in a repository on GitHub. Once a pull request is opened, you can discuss and review the potential changes with collaborators and add follow-up commits before your changes are merged into the base branch.

So, PRs are more than just the initial request.? If you look at PRs on our github and on other projects, they often serve to improve the original proposal, ask questions about how the changes were tested, serve as a record of what the changes were meant to do, etc.? You can use the same PR to add the follow-on commits that address other people's concerns, or post responses to indicate the concerns have already been addressed, etc.
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Regards,
Dave, N1AI

Another nice feature of Github that we get for free is Issues (??).??

It's basically a bug-tracking mechanism.? People can report issues they find with the software, and even the hardware too, if that's what the community wants to do.? People who like working on the project can look at the Issues and find things they might want to work on.? They can be tagged to categorize the issues so that people who want to specialize in one area can focus on those issues.? ? They even have tags such as "good first issue" that steer newcomers to some of the issues that are probably more straight forward to fix.

A good example of a project that uses github issue tracking is gnuradio (??).? ?

Also gnuradio uses tags on their pull requests (??) to give an indication of where the fix should go, what state it is in, etc.

Finally, a page I've referred to a lot is?.? It's a really good place to start if you're just learning git.? You just need to change their github url from theirs (??) to ours (??). It's fairly old ( last edit 2017 ) but it's not out of date.? It touches all the key points and with that to start with, you can do more research to fill in any blank spots.

gnuradio is a project with a 20+ year history and IMO have developed a lot of good practices with regard to community software development.

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Regards,
Dave, N1AI

So I see that there are a few great looking updates that people have worked on and created pull requests.? How do we then implement those pulls?? Do we wait for Farhan to incorporate those into a new version and run an update? Do we add individual pulls one at a time?? Thanks for those that are helping us learn the ropes!

The best thing to do if you are not a programmer especially, is to wait until the code has been tested and Farhan and team is happy enough to incorporate the updates into the main branch of the code. That way you will be able to use the update process from the sbitx to incorporate the new updates when new releases are announced.
If you are a developer and want to help with a particular update, you can work directly with the pull request or as others have done, create your own pull request and work on that.
Doing it this way ensures that the main code that everyone uses in the radio remains consistent and known to be tested and working. Note that as with all software, nothing is ever perfect.
If there is an issue that you have spotted that is not already being dealt with, this is handled by raising an issue either in this group or you can click the issues button on the github page. Here you can see a list of issues that have already been raised, if yours is not listed, click the create issue button and explain in the comments field what your issue is, put as much specific detail in this wording as concisely as possible so that someone can investigate. It can take some time before it is looked at depending on the number of issues in the stack and the importance/seriousness of the problem.
Hope the explanation helps
Paul
G0KAO

On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 02:29 AM, Paul wrote:

The best thing to do if you are not a programmer especially, is to wait until the code has been tested and Farhan and team is happy enough to incorporate the updates into the main branch of the code. That way you will be able to use the update process from the sbitx to incorporate the new updates when new releases are announced.
If you are a developer and want to help with a particular update, you can work directly with the pull request or as others have done, create your own pull request and work on that.
Doing it this way ensures that the main code that everyone uses in the radio remains consistent and known to be tested and working. Note that as with all software, nothing is ever perfect.

I agree with everything you wrote.? Pull requests are generally intended for one developer to provide code to another developer, with the goal of merging the two code bases.? Testing the result is required.? Some skill/experience is needed to know what things need to be tested after each change.

Yet I would also?emphasize that this code base is very approachable.? If you read Farhan's papers (some listed below) it is written in a way to be as approachable as possible.? He even shows you how to run the code in the debugger.? Compared to other code bases I've worked with, I think he's achieved that.?

So if you don't consider yourself to be a full blown developer but at least conversant in the C programming language, you should consider having a go at it.? Select some aspect of the code you find interesting and single step it in the debugger or add some print statements.? ?Look at pending pull requests for things you want fixed and if the code changes make sense to you, give them a try.? Same for various small code changes people post here.? Clearly you won't want to start by changing the transmit power levels, go for something that isn't risky first.? Since you have good backups of the software (we all do, right?) you can always restore the backup and be back where you started, or simply undo the code change and rebuild.? The radio is built for tinkerers, both the hardware and software kind.

TL;DR: Pull requests (and commits on other people's forks) are great ways to find interesting bits of code to muck with.

• Papers

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Regards,
Dave, N1AI

This has all be very helpful, thank you!? I'll sit back and patiently await all the great new updates that I'm seeing here!

Is there a place in github to request new features, or some tool that the dev team uses to keep track of new things?? There's a few things that I would like to see added, but don't have the skill to do on my own.? I know Farhan is hard at work addressing many things, and he's mentioned several features that I'd like to see added, just don't want them to fall through the cracks.

On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 12:08 PM, <jefe_de_estado@...> wrote:

Is there a place in github to request new features

?would be the standard place for such things.

Tags could be applied to indicate 'feature request' instead of bug.

or some tool that the dev team uses to keep track of new things??

Hopefully that would be the one...

I know Farhan is hard at work addressing many things, and he's mentioned several features that I'd like to see added, just don't want them to fall through the cracks.

I agree.
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Regards,
Dave, N1AI