Introduction and Implementation

[luqq-md]

Hi @pradeeban sir

I'm currently a third-year B.Tech Computer Science student. I've been exploring open-source development and previously contributed to DeepChem, where I worked on fixing invalid escape sequence warnings in Python files. That experience got me interested in understanding larger codebases, investigating issues, and contributing to established projects.

I've cloned CONTROL-CORE and started exploring its CLI, runtime, setup process, and existing tests. I want to understand how the different components work together before jumping into major changes.
My initial plan is to approach the project from the perspective of a new user. I'd like to go through the installation and setup process, run some existing studies, and identify where users might get stuck.

Some areas I'd particularly like to explore are:

1. Installation and configuration: identify difficulties across Windows, Linux, and Docker, and improve setup validation wherever necessary.
2. CLI usability: explore existing commands such as setup, doctor, validate, and build, looking for missing checks, unclear output, and opportunities to provide more actionable error messages.
3. Cross-platform reliability: investigate issues related to study execution, process management, and environment differences. I've already started looking into a Windows process-management issue where registered controllers can be skipped during shutdown, and I'm working on reproducing and testing the behavior.
4. Documentation and examples: identify gaps in installation instructions and example workflows, and make sure the documented steps work in practice.
5. Testing: add regression tests for issues I address and validate changes against existing workflows to avoid introducing regressions.

I'd prefer to make focused, independently testable contributions rather than introduce large changes without understanding their impact.
I'm still learning some parts of the codebase, and I'm actively working on strengthening my Python, Linux, and Docker skills.

I'd really appreciate your feedback on whether this approach aligns with what you envision for the project. Are there particular workflows or recurring difficulties reported by users that you think I should prioritize? Also, based on my current preparation, are there specific technical areas you'd recommend I strengthen before working on my proposal?
I'm genuinely interested in putting in the effort, learning the project properly, and making useful contributions along the way with good experiences and moments
Thank You

[pradeeban]

@luqq-md those are great approaches. Especially if you have access to those diverse operating systems. Many PRs are written for various operating systems, but never actually tested on those. If you indeed actually can test your PRs on those OSes, that will be excellent. I know it is an unrealistic expectation to have access to various OSes. But if you test it on (for example, Windows or Mac or certain Linux distro), pls explicitly note that.

[luqq-md]

I mainly have access to Windows 11, so I'll make sure to mention the exact environment I've tested on in my PRs.I'll also try using Docker for Linux testing wherever possible...

[pradeeban]

That is fair.