clang/www/get_involved.html

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  16 <h1>Getting Involved with the Clang Project</h1>
  17
  18 <p>Once you have <a href="get_started.html">checked out and built</a> clang and
  19 played around with it, you might be wondering what you can do to make it better
  20 and contribute to its development.  Alternatively, maybe you just want to follow
  21 the development of the project to see it progress.
  22 </p>
  23
  24 <h2>Contribute</h2>
  25
  26 See the <a href="hacking.html">hacking</a> document for information on how
  27 to author patches.
  28
  29 <h2>Follow what's going on</h2>
  30
  31 <p>Clang is a subproject of the <a href="https://llvm.org">LLVM Project</a>
  32 and has a Discourse forum and mailing list:</p>
  33
  34 <ul>
  35 <li><a href="https://discourse.llvm.org/c/clang/6">Clang Frontend Discourse forum</a> -
  36 This forum is for discussions related to Clang (questions and answers, design
  37 discussions, RFCs, etc).</li>
  38
  39 <li><a href="https://discord.gg/xS7Z362">Discord chat</a> - Real-time chat for
  40 discussions related to Clang (primarily for questions and answers).</li>
  41
  42 <li>Regular meetings are held on the
  43 <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7V0MHP4xMs1yUQ9Gv9LHn5bwDfFVapn/view?usp=sharing">
  44 first and third Wednesday</a> of each month to discuss C and C++
  45 standards-related activities happening within the Clang community. These
  46 meetings are a way to coordinate efforts between implementers and provide
  47 updates on how standards activities are going. Meeting agendas and minutes are
  48 available
  49 <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x5-RbOC6-jnI_NcJ9Dp4pSmGhhNe7lUevuWUIB46TeM/edit?usp=sharing">
  50 here<a>.
  51 </li>
  52
  53 <li><a href="https://llvm.org/docs/GettingInvolved.html#office-hours">Clang office hours</a> -
  54 People within the community hold dedicated office hours at different points
  55 during the month, which is a great way opportunity for getting questions
  56 answered, having more in-depth design discussions, or learning about what's
  57 going on in the community in general.</li>
  58
  59 <li><a href="https://lists.llvm.org/mailman/listinfo/cfe-commits">cfe-commits
  60 </a> - Historical record of commits to Clang and contains early community patch
  61 review commentary.</li>
  62
  63 </ul>
  64
  65 <p>The most common way to talk with other developers on the project is through
  66 the <a href="https://discourse.llvm.org/c/clang/6">Clang Frontend Discourse forum
  67 </a>. The clang forum is a very friendly place and we welcome newcomers. The
  68 forum is archived so you can browse through previous discussions or follow
  69 development on the web if you prefer.</p>
  70
  71 <p>If you're looking for something to work on, check out our <a
  72 href="OpenProjects.html">Open Projects</a> page or look through the <a
  73 href="https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/">LLVM bug tracker</a>.</p>
  74
  75 <h2 id="criteria">Contributing Extensions to Clang</h2>
  76
  77 <p>Clang is designed to support experimentation,
  78 allowing programmers to easily extend the compiler to support great
  79 new language features and tools. At some point, the authors of these
  80 extensions may propose that the extensions become a part of Clang
  81 itself, to benefit the whole Clang community. However, extensions
  82 (particularly language extensions) have long-term maintenance costs
  83 for Clang. The benefits of the extension need to be evaluated against
  84 these costs. The Clang project uses the following criteria for this
  85 evaluation:</p>
  86
  87 <ol>
  88   <li>Evidence of a significant user community: This is based on a number of
  89   factors, including an existing user community, the perceived likelihood that
  90   users would adopt such a feature if it were available, and any secondary
  91   effects that come from, e.g., a library adopting the feature and providing
  92   benefits to its users.</li>
  93
  94   <li>A specific need to reside within the Clang tree: There are some extensions
  95   that would be better expressed as a separate tool, and should remain as
  96   separate tools even if they end up being hosted as part of the LLVM umbrella
  97   project.</li>
  98
  99   <li>A specification: The specification must be sufficient to understand the
 100   design of the feature as well as interpret the meaning of specific examples.
 101   The specification should be detailed enough that another compiler vendor
 102   could implement the feature.</li>
 103
 104   <li>Representation within the appropriate governing organization: For
 105   extensions to a language governed by a standards committee (C, C++, OpenCL),
 106   the extension itself must have an active proposal and proponent within that
 107   committee and have a reasonable chance of acceptance. Clang should drive the
 108   standard, not diverge from it. This criterion does not apply to all
 109   extensions, since some extensions fall outside of the realm of the standards
 110   bodies.</li>
 111
 112   <li>A long-term support plan: increasingly large or complex extensions to
 113   Clang need matching commitments to supporting them over time, including
 114   improving their implementation and specification as Clang evolves. The
 115   capacity of the contributor to make that commitment is as important as the
 116   commitment itself.</li>
 117
 118   <li>A high-quality implementation: The implementation must fit well into
 119   Clang's architecture, follow LLVM's coding conventions, and meet Clang's
 120   quality standards, including diagnostics and complete AST
 121   representations. This is particularly important for language extensions,
 122   because users will learn how those extensions work through the behavior of the
 123   compiler.</li>
 124
 125   <li>A test suite: Extensive testing is crucial to ensure that the language
 126   extension is not broken by ongoing maintenance in Clang. The test suite
 127   should be complete enough that another compiler vendor could conceivably
 128   validate their implementation of the feature against it.</li>
 129 </ol>
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