Being a dogecoin contributor
TLDR; -> Go here for the main summary points.
The world is full of many different types of people. I for one entered the workforce as a programmer and later turned ‘quality assurance manager’. In QA we write a LOT of procedures, heavy on the documentation. Today my ‘gut’ likes to write lots (and lots) of verbose documentation, describing processes and procedures.
Some people are not as interested in documentation, you could even say that it is not a very ‘agile’ approach to development. So the first thing I look for when contributing to a project is the “policy and procedures”. For example in the world of bitcoin, they have ‘BIPS’ or ‘Bitcoin Improvement Proposals’. These help roadmap upcoming changes to the protocol and help in gaining consensus on changes. I am a big fan of this kind of documentation, but I can also see how for others it’s just more ‘red tape’ to deal with.
So when I decided to make learn more about cryptocurrency and the mysterious “blockchain” I was excited to learn about (and be respectful) of its development processes and procedures.. With Dogecoin, it was a a bit of a challenge to figure out exactly what those processes were, somewhat of a treasure hunting experience of its own. What I learned is that Dogecoin is different in its development cycles, not disorganized at all, but different.
There are many different ways to contribute. Users contribute by keeping the meme going, suggesting ideas on subreddits like r/dogecoin and r/dogecoindev, miners contribute by — well mining of course..and one of the BIGGEST ways a person can contribute is by running a long term ‘full node’. The more full nodes the better. Developers contribute with GitHub by pushing code “Pull Requests” (or PR for short) to a repository. The rest of this article is strictly form my perspective as a developer.
Summary — What makes Dogecoin Development different?
a) ‘Motto — If it ain’t broke — don’t fix it’ — Just because it may not have constant daily releases — does not mean it is not ‘active’. But don’t expect every idea that pops into your head to be implemented by a dev — simply because you submitted it as an issue/feature request, even if lots of other (non-devs) are like it.
b) There are no ‘BIPS’. You can submit an idea though github using the ‘Feature Request’ template, BUT I wouldn’t suggest doing unless you are a developer yourself and are prepared to spin up some of your own code to get it moving. If you have an idea to contirbute — share it on r/dogecoindev’s, and get a discussion going, find someone with programming & crypto experience to help with implement, and then submit the feature request. The developers are very helpful (especially to newbie contributors like myself)
c) Have a ‘thick’ skin. Unfortunately, like other areas of the Internet, github is not troll free. Many people seem to sign up with little/no programming experience and some are.. well let’s just say “less then polite”. My first real ‘PR’ / idea for Dogecoin, was well received by many, but one user had the following to say.
d) No Procedures != Unorganized. In fact, the developers are very busy working to update Dogecoin to bring in some of the latest features from bitcoin, reduce fees and speed up transactions, but don’t expect to find a documented roadmap to how this is being laid out. Instead, I recommend following the dev’s blogs and twitch steam to better understand where things are going, and also interact, and find out how you can help.
I am enjoying the development cycle in Dogecoin, it is different then I am used to but dev’s have been very helpful, and it continues to be an excellent learning experience.
