I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the R Dev Day @ RSECon25, a full day dedicated to contributing to the R language. Held at the University of Warwick, Coventry, the event brought together R contributors from across the world, creating an inspiring environment to collaborate, contribute, code, and learn!
Preparing for Dev Day
Before the R Dev Day, we had an optional preparation day where participants could set up prerequisites and explore the list of issues in the r-devel/r-dev-day GitHub repository. The issues were thoughtfully categorised - Translation, Statistics/Graphics/Documentation, I/O, Low-level, and Misc. This made it easier to pick something aligned with our interests and skills. This pre-meetup also helped us decide which issues we wanted to work on and ensured we arrived well-prepared.
A Full Day of Contributions
During the Dev Day itself, I worked on two issues from the r-devel repository:
Issue 1: Bug 18282 - Improving the documentation of var.test()
I focused on enhancing the documentation of the R function var.test() along with the other contributors. I received helpful and constructive feedback from Sebastian Meyer, and by the end of the day, we were able to submit a patch for the issue. Seeing this progress come together collaboratively was extremely satisfying. Check out more about my contribution in this GitHub issue!
Issue 2: Testing with ‘write’ permission
For my second issue, I was given write permissions in the repository. On my macOS machine, I set up and installed pre-commit and successfully ran the R function use_precommit(). Pre-commit is a tool that helps one automatically check for minor issues before pushing code from a local repository to a remote repository for code review or for merging. This was a great hands-on experience that deepened my understanding of the technical workflow used in R development. Check out my contribution in this GitHub issue!
Learning New Tools
One of the highlights of the day was learning how to use GitHub Codespaces and Live Codespaces. Live Codespaces makes real-time, collaborative coding feel as intuitive as working together on a shared document - similar to a Google Doc but for code. This significantly speeds up development when working as a team.
Connecting with the R Community
Throughout the event, I had the chance to work alongside R contributors from many parts of the world. It was wonderful to see how various R communities - such as R-Ladies, rOpenSci, and rainbowR - collaborate, support each other, and help newcomers find their footing.
Meeting many members of the R-Ladies community in person was especially meaningful. R was my first programming language, and R-Ladies Global was the first open-source community I joined. I was warmly welcomed into the community early on and even got the opportunity to serve as a social media curator. This role introduced me to the wider world of open-source software and community-led development - something that continues to enrich my career and learning journey.
Some Lovely Memories!
Along with coding and collaborating, the day also brought small moments of joy - collecting R stickers from different packages and communities, chocolates shared by the R en Buenos Aires chapter, and evening Dev Day dinners.
My gratitude!
This experience was both enriching and motivating. My heartfelt thanks to Heather Turner for inviting me, guiding us through the day, and bringing together such a vibrant and welcoming community of R contributors. I am truly grateful for the opportunity!
Get In Touch:
Email: bhogaljyoti1@gmail.com
LinkedIn: jyoti-bhogal
GitHub: jyoti-bhogal
Mastodon: jyoti_bhogal
Bluesky: jyoti-bhogal.bsky.social
Website: https://jyoti-bhogal.github.io/about-me/index.html