Today at 6pm I have finished the necessary changes to my Source Server patch so that it is ready to be checked in. This will be my first check in to the Mozilla code and I’m pretty psyched that after about 6 months of working on this, this particular chapter is about to close.

The last few changes today were quite interesting and good learning for me. Basically, I had to take my | if self.srcsrv | stuff and put it into a separate method. Ted pointed out that this was because it’s win32 specific code, so there’s no need for it to be in the general Dumper class.

Hello object-oriented programming? This is exactly what I need to learn this in an applied manner and I will remember this lesson better than having just read it in a book.

So now there’s a declared SourceServerIndexing method in the Dumper, and then a detailed method of the same name in the Win32 Dumper – which is where all the action is. I wonder if there’s a chapter somewhere down the line where I will try to take this SourceIndexing into the Linux and Darwin dumpers.

When I first pulled everything out into the method, I had to wrap my head around the way that Python calls methods. Basically, if I called it from within Dumper, I need to do self.MethodName so that it looks for the method inside the Dumper class. Without the self. in front, I got an error message saying that a global name “MethodName” was not recognized. Also, when I was running | make buildsymbols | I wasn’t source indexing the pdbs. So I put in some print statements to see if all the right steps were happening. They were. Confusing.

Eventually I noticed that there’s a |shutil.copyfile(file, full_path)| which is what puts the pdb files in the place that I want them to be for indexing and I was calling my method before that. Quick switch and the lights turned on, the music played and my pdb files were indexed.

This has been a great project for teaching me how to set up a work flow as efficiently as possible. Now I’m at the point where I can get right into working on the code and testing frequently with minimal effort. The closer I got towards getting it all working, the easier the work flow got. Right now I can test this patch with just MingW32, a command shell and my Crimson Editor. I can tell within the first few seconds of |make buildsymbols| running if it has worked and then a ctrl + C to interrupt it and get back to the tweaking of code.

It feels great to have put this up for approval. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Went to the Toronto Mozilla office today. Spent the afternoon reviewing add-ons and I also got to put some faces to names. Since last Friday when we got training from Alex Polvi to be editors for AMO, I’ve reviewed 14 extensions and I’m learning a lot about the process.

Ted said he’d be reviewing my patch tomorrow and we’re hoping to land it in the next few days. As far as I can tell right now, the only issue should be that my error handling is currently just printed to stderr and doesn’t actually change the srcsrv flag.

So fingers crossed – there might be source server on the debug builds by the end of the week. This means the rest of term can be devoted to pdbstr.exe. I have yet to communicate with Timeless who is the recommended contact to discuss things of this ilk.

Over reading week I should be able to do some more digging into those hex dumps as well as start testing the source server once it’s on Tinderbox.

Well as reading week approaches and I wait (again) for feedback on my patch, I am trying to keep busy in Mozilla activities.

One of my recent activities is helping out with Live Chat user support. It’s amazing! A very small team of dedicated people are helping individuals in real time with their wide variety of issues. I’ve been learning tons about the issues that users face – right now firewalls and security updates seem to be a frequent problem. I’m also jumping headlong into another thread of the vast Mozilla community, this one mostly volunteers, and getting to know some folks. The EST hours for Live Chat are from 4pm – 9pm and from 10pm – 12am. I mostly have been able to pitch in on the later shift because that’s about when I am tired of doing my homework 🙂

Getting involved with Live Chat was super easy – I read the documentation, created and account and was shadowing experienced helpers less than an hour later. One week later and I’m in on a phone conference to discuss what the priorities are for the next 3 months. Again, I say amazing.

I encourage all Mozilla or open source involved Seneca students to jump into Live Chat and try helping out people in real time. It’s intense, and can be challenging (I think my success rate is only about 50%) but it’s an eye-opening experience for how the other half lives. The half what don’t have #seneca for all their questions.