[manle0312]

Greetings,

This may sound like a very common question, but what are some good ways for a beginner developer to contribute to the SU2 code? For example, I would like to contribute to the numerical parts, do I : a) look at issues on Github and pick one to solve, or b) keep playing with the code and try to find a way to improve it and submit a pull request?

[pcg]

Hello,

First let me say that whichever way you choose to contribute you will be welcomed.

I think this should depend mostly on your personal interests, if there is something in particular you want to experiment with start there, maybe open an issue to ask if anyone is doing or has done something similar and go from there.

The major development vectors we have at the moment include maintenance (simply splitting large files into smaller ones and modernizing them a bit for c++11 (issue #583), this is a good task to learn how the code is organized), Sherlock Holmes type investigation of why some results are not ideal (#797, #828, #917), performance optimizations that require significant code refactoring (#594, #789), validation, and last but not least documentation.
If any of these interest you, comment on them and ask how you can help. But don't feel obligated to choose from an existing issue, our development process is not really a centrally organized effort.

There is some helpful information in this video if you are getting started with GitHub etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgYzFLoEAYA
Some useful advice, keep your development updated with the develop branch, try to keep pull requests on the small side at first, and if you think the work you set out to do is going to take a while, open a draft pull request so people know someone is working on that particular problem.

Looking forward to your first contribution!

Cheers,
Pedro