Discussion: contribution process

[Tao-VanJS]

Want to discuss the draft contribution process to see if there are any problems with 3rd party contributors. Once the steps can be finalized and verified by some contributors, I will publish them to CONTRIBUTING.md.

1. Install dependencies in the root directories:

npm install

2. Upgrade the version in the package.json file. Considering the significance of this feature, it might be suitable to increment the minor version.
3. Modify source files in the src/ directory.
4. Execute bash publish.sh within the src/ directory. (While it might seem unusual to run a command within a subdirectory, fixing that isn't currently a priority.) Make sure the bash script completes with no error messages. This action generates the published bundles corresponding to the new version.
5. Perform a browser-based test. Essentially, you need a static HTTP server to host the root directory. Then, attempt to load http://localhost:{port}/test/van.test.html in your browser to see if all tests pass.
6. If applicable, update the corresponding .debug.js and .d.ts files as well.
7. Develop new tests to encompass the new APIs.
8. Ideally, providing sample web pages to showcase the new feature would be beneficial.

[enpitsuLin]

IMO, In most JavaScript opensource community, people should prefer just contribute code/doc, publish by project maintainer

And end products(van-latest.js/van-latest.min.js) also shouldn't be contained in source code repo, which can be distribute by npm or just in Github release page

[enpitsuLin]

if distribute vanjs to npm, the version/publish should be no more one step in the contribution process

[Tao-VanJS]

Sure. You can commit only the source file in a custom branch. I will do the publishing and merge it to the main :-) This is my first open source project thus I'm in the process of learning.

[andrewgryan]

I agree with @enpitsuLin the release process should be decoupled from the contribution process, to give the maintainers a chance to stabilise the release or combine multiple pull requests into a single release. I’ll revert the version bump in my PR to trial the above approach

[FredericHeem]

Would it be possible to add prettier to ensure a common styling ?

[Tao-VanJS]

It should be possible. Might not be the current priority of VanJS project. I can take a look at this when I have a big chunk of time.

[Tao-VanJS]

Thanks for @enpitsuLin and @andrewgryan for your precious feedback. I think the steps described above can be used for testing purpose, if you want to (you can also skip this part if your PR is simple enough and you have the confidence in its correctness).

For 3rd-party PRs, I think the process can be:

1. Contributor submits a PR that only contains changes on van.js, with van.debug.js, van.d.ts or van.test.ts if applicable.
2. VanJS maintainer will merge the PR in a custom branch.
3. VanJS maintainer will be responsible for the version upgrade, completing the testing, and then merging the custom branch to main.

Let me know your thought on this.

[andrewgryan]

I'm curious, what is the purpose of van.debug.js?

[Tao-VanJS]

https://vanjs.org/start#download-table has the description of the debug file.