###### tags: `new contributors meetings`
# Matplotlib New Contributors Meeting June 2022

Welcome to the monthly call for new contributors to the Matplotlib project 🎉

* Next meeting: June 7th, 2022 (Tuesday) @ 5PM UTC
* Join via [Zoom](https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81285851006?pwd=Tks2QjRkNWh5NGw0TmU1RUwwOVluZz09)
* if you need a passcode for zoom MPL should work
* Our next meeting will be on:
* July 5th, 2022 (Tuesday) @ 5PM UTC

### Code of Conduct

We want to take a moment to remind you that this meeting, like all project spaces is meant to be open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and it's important for us to have a healthy community. Like all matplotlib spaces, and everyone participating in them, this meeting will follow our [code of conduct](https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md). If you haven't read it yet, please take some time to do so later on as it already applies to you. For now, in short, please be kind and generous towards one another.

## Agenda

**Present:** Noa Tamir (@noatamir), Greg Lucas (@greglucas), Johnny Gill, Andrew Fennell, Thomas Caswell

> please add your names (and github handle in brackets). This will makes it easier to stay in touch later in Gitter and on issues and pull requests (PRs) 😉
> This is optional since these notes will be recorded in our Github repository. If you'd like you can also paste your answer in the zoom chat 😉

*Feel free to add items for discussion to this agenda!*

* Introductions:
* [name=Noa Tamir] Contributor Experience Lead, she/היא/sie
* I joined Matplotlib in March so I'm relatively new as well. At the moment I am mostly working on documenation, and contributor exprience related issues (for example organizing this meeting).
* [name=Greg Lucas] Matplotlib Maintainer, he/him
* I joined Matplotlib about a year ago, but have been using it for quite some time now. I come from an Earth modeling and satellite data analysis background. In that regard, I am also a maintainer of another Python package, Cartopy, for plotting the data I work with on maps within Matplotlib.
* [name=Johnny Gill] Old contributor
* I contributed some code to draw tables, around 2003? I created a new project, blume, as a place to explore ideas around tables in matplotlib. It is turning into a toolkit to help me explore cosmological data with my other personal project gotu, which uses blume and matplotlib to explore the universe.
* [name=Andrew Fennell]
* I am a new contributor to matplotlib. I have been making contributions for a few months now. I'm looking to learn more about matplotlib and improve my skills working on OSS.
* [name=Thomas Caswell]
* Current project lead. Been with the project for 8(ish) years. He/him
* [name=Your Name] your experience with matplotlib/python in short, pronouns
* Newcomer: why are we interested to start working with the project
* Maintainer/contributor: how long have we worked with the project and what do we primarily do

* [name=Johnny Gill] 20 min Talk: The history of matplotlib and how I use it to explore the universe with [blume](https://github.com/swfiua/blume) and [gotu](https://github.com/swfiua/gotu)
* rcparams are evaluated when the figure is created, which is a challenge because in blume the approach is to evaluate them on the fly. This would require to recreate plots from scratch.
* How has your development style changed since moving outside of mpl?
* Started off with core algorithms and hoped someone else would take it and make it better from there.
* test driven development doen't fit to the sort of code he is writing. freedom to produce somehitng completely difrent.
* 130 commits which created maintanence burden, but the core alg has changed in essence.
* What was the biggest challenge working on mpl when you first started?
* it was super easy. John Hunter was so encouraging.
* colaborated on some code
* they didn't have git, mabe SVN? you had to send him patches
* the mailing list was very important
* multiple backends, fonts support, was mazbe the sort of challenges the project was facing and solving
* Where do you see blume 5 years from now?
* maybe ready to share and be used...

> Newcomers please add items to the agenda based on your interests! What would you like us to discuss? do you want to ask something? are you already working on a specific PR? you can add a link to it ✨ Would you like to get some guidance on how to navigate some of the code? OR learn how to add a test? We will do our best to answer or help you connect you with the right people ☺️

## Useful Resources

* [Our contributor Guide](https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/devel/contributing.html)
* This is where we keep past meeting notes from the new contributors meeting [insert github link]
* You will soon find today's meeting notes there
* You can also have a look at topics and links that were shared before 🧐
* If you are curious, here's an article about [the architecture of Matplotlib](http://www.aosabook.org/en/matplotlib.html)

### Communication channels

How will we communicate asynchronously while working on the project?
* [Gitter](https://gitter.im/matplotlib/matplotlib)
* A chat platform which is useful for shorter questions
* #incubator channel, our non-public communication channel for new contributors
* Ask Noa on chat now, or later on gitter to be invited
* [Discourse](https://discourse.matplotlib.org/)
* A forum platform which is useful for longer questions that are harder to ask on chat
* [Developer mailing list](https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/matplotlib-devel)
* We publish information which is important for contributors on this list. People from other projects might also share useful information or questions here. That said, it is also mirrored on our discourse 😉 (unless we there's a techincal issue like happened recently 🙄)