---
tags: new contributors meeting, pandas
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# pandas New Contributors Meeting

> [!NOTE]
> The New k Contributors Meeting is still active, but notes are no longer being maintained.

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

* Next meeting: check https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/community.html?highlight=slack#calendar
* Join via [Zoom](https://numfocus-org.zoom.us/j/83118891909?pwd=Y0tlalhhbDRybHI5eS9jb0t5a1M3UT09)
* if you need a passcode for zoom pd should work

### 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, and inclusive. Like all pandas spaces, and everyone participating in them, this meeting will follow our [code of conduct](https://pandas.pydata.org/community/coc.html). 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.

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Take our event survey at the end of the meeting (it will/should open in a new browser tab).

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## Notes October 15, 2025

**Present:** Aidan Feldman, Jill, Joris Van den Bossche, Sacha Torrees, Veronica S, Vijay Sarathy

Links shared:

- https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/pulls?q=pdep++in%3Atitle
- https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/user_guide/migration-3-strings.html
- https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/tree/main/web/pandas/pdeps
- https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22good%20first%20issue%22
- https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/development/contributing_documentation.html
- https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/whatsnew/v3.0.0.html
- https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20milestone%3A3.0
- https://pandas.pydata.org/about/roadmap.html
- https://pydata-sphinx-theme.readthedocs.io/en/stable/index.html
- https://github.com/scientific-python/scientific-python-hugo-theme
- https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/community.html#community-slack

## Notes November 15, 2023

**Present:** Marco Gorelli, Melissa Mendonça, Joris Van den Bossche,

## Notes October 18, 2023
**Present:** Melissa Mendonça (@melissawm), Marco Gorelli, George Gigilas Junior (@GeorgeJuniorGG), Richard Shadrach, Cristiano, Mylena Roberta dos Santos (@MylenaRoberta), aureliobarbosa

- aureliobarbosa is a professor at UnB (Brazil) and wants to start contributing
- George, Mylena and Cristiano are working together as part of a course, learning to make their first open source contributions. Marco suggests picking up a "add examples to docstring" issue to get started.

## Notes September 20, 2023
**Present:** Noa Tamir, José Lucas Silva Mayer, Willian Wang

- How to get started with the contributor guide, finding first issues
- How are our docs structured: using sphinx and docstrings
- How to know if an issue is available, or how long to wait before stepping in
- [Optional] [Noa's Introduction to contributing to pandas presentation](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Vd8p1BeRKJqkBowq3lxHPzf5UDu9XYOGLFO1PeTRFdc/edit?usp=sharing)

## Notes July 19, 2023
**Present:** Noa Tamir, Joris Van den Bossche, Marco Gorelli, Richard, [Candace Williams](https://github.com/teacherc)

- Your topic goes here
- [Optional] [Noa's Introduction to contributing to pandas presentation](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Vd8p1BeRKJqkBowq3lxHPzf5UDu9XYOGLFO1PeTRFdc/edit?usp=sharing)

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## Notes June 21, 2023
**Present:** Joris Van den Bossche, Marco Gorelli, Akmal Soliev

- Structured Arrays - Numpy - `.to_numpy()` - Akmal

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## Notes May 17, 2023
**Present:** Noa Tamir (@noatamir), Marco Gorelli, Patrick Hoefler

- testing for pandas development (@phofl)
- if you are interested in concat, check out this recent PR that refactors it: https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/pull/53260/files

## Notes April 19, 2023

General q&a / office hours with new contributors.

Covered:
- setting up environment
- choosing issues to work on
- running tests locally
- copy-on-write

# Notes March 15, 2023
**Present:** Noa Tamir (@noatamir), Joris Van den Bossche (@jorisvandenbossche), Patrick Hoefler
> 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!*

-

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## Notes Februray 15, 2023
**Present:** Noa Tamir (@noatamir), Joris Van den Bossche (@jorisvandenbossche)
> 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!*

- Philip = question about the docstring tests (give me a moment to pull up the issue)
- Repeated intro slides with new folks
- What is gitpod
- If you want to follow Marco for livestreams of pandas maintenance work subscribe to this [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLxm5BvrJBMIPunH9hy5gTg)

### Notes January 18, 2023
**Present:** Noa Tamir (@noatamir), Richard Shadrach (@rhshadrach), Patrick Hoefler, Marco Gorelli, Sergio Rojas (@hisergiorojas),
> 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 😉

[Introduction to contributing to pandas presentation](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Vd8p1BeRKJqkBowq3lxHPzf5UDu9XYOGLFO1PeTRFdc/edit?usp=sharing)

[Introduction to OSS contribution workflow](https://github.com/firstcontributions/first-contributions)

`yum list installed | grep -i --color compiler` doesn't work on fedora but `yum list installed | grep -i --color gcc` does. Maybe we can update teh docs here.

pip install instruction might be missing an extra step for hdf?!

add a note about using mamba rather than micromamba

we spoke about runing the test suite locally and how you can avoid certain failed tests. https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/contributing_codebase.html#running-the-test-suite.

## Notes November 16, 2022
**Present:** Noa Tamir (@noatamir), Richard Shadrach (@rhshadrach), Dhavide Aruliah (@dhavide), Thomas Lautenschläger (thlautenschlaeger), Maggie Liu (@mliu08), Sanjay Vankudre ( @vankudre), Alexander Lind (@al91liwo), Marco Gorelli (@MarcoGorelli), Jan Timko (@honza26), Dennis Chukwunta (@th3nn3ss)
> please add your names (and github handle in brackets). This will makes it easier to stay in touch later 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!*

- [name=Richard] Debugging demo (recorded)
- Improvements to the contributor guide page about setting up your development environment
- General introduction
- Communication standard for contributions: slack or github?
- Github is best for most communication. It is searchable and saves history. Very useful for the project now and in the future.
- Slack is best if you don't feel comfortable posting something publicly yet.

## Notes October 19, 2022

**Present:** Noa Tamir (@noatamir), Joris Van den Bossche (@jorisvandenbossche), Dhavide Aruliah (@dhavide), Richard Shadrach (@rhshadrach), Thomas Lautenschläger (@thlautenschlaeger), Markus Semmler (@kosmitive), Sam Cunliffe (@samcunliffe), Jill Augustine (@jill-augustine), James Powell (@dontusethiscode), Cameron Riddell (@camriddell), Bill Blum (@roadswitcher), Filipe Fernandes (@ocefpaf), Marco (@MarcoGorelli), Karolina Krassowska (@krassowska)
> please add your names (and github handle in brackets). This will makes it easier to stay in touch later 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!*

- [name=MarcoGorelli] [lot's of issues can come out of this one](https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues/48855)
- There's an ongoing issue with compiling pandas to be aware of: https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues/47305
- [Issue triage](https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/maintaining.html#issue-triage )
- Helping with triage is a great way to support the project!
- Open an issue, try to reproduce the bug on the version that is mentioned.
- Write a comment that says - I was/wasn't able to reproduce this
- This can take about 15-30 mins per bug and can be don in a notebook often. But we have a lot of bug reports!
- Lables that can help you find issues to start working on:
- [good-first-issue](https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues?q=is%3Aopen+label%3A%22good+first+issue%22+sort%3Aupdated-desc), [needs-tests](https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues?q=is%3Aopen+label%3A%22needs+tests%22+sort%3Aupdated-desc)
- Assign yourself to an issue using [`take`](https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/contributing.html#where-to-start)
- if an issue was already assigned using take, but no PR was opened for many weeks. Go ahead and use take on it. Unless the original person says "oh no, I was still hoping to get back to this", it is all yours. It's more likely that they moved on to other things and forgot to unassign themselves.

> 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://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/index.html)
* [Calendar](https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/community.html#calendar)
* This is where we keep past meeting notes from the new contributors meeting [on github](link to folder or repository)
* 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 a talk about [the past, present, and future of pandas](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7JHqxODJG9k), by Jeff Reback

### Communication channels

How will we communicate asynchronously while working on the project?
* Slack
* A chat platform which is useful for shorter questions
* #newcomers channel, our channel for new contributors
* Use the zoom chat to DM Noa your email now, saying that you'd like to join slack.
* Or [read this](https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/community.html#community-slack) to learn how you can join yourself
* [Developer mailing list](https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pandas-dev)
* We publish information which is important for contributors on this list. People from other projects might also share useful information or questions here.