[UserStory] Add workarounds to Contributing.md

[Aleksander-Gomez]

User Story

Essential components

• [x] Title describes the story
• [x] Stakeholder type is identified
• [x] Outcome is described
• [x] Rationale is explicit
• [x] Acceptance criteria are verifiable and from the perspective of the stakeholder

Story

As a contributor I want Workaround instructions for building on MacOS and Ubuntu machines in the contributing.md file so that anyone who may be building on those machines can build successfully.

Acceptance Criteria

(Rules or scenarios are acceptable formats.)

• [ ] * The contributing.md file offers a workaround for when building on MacOS and getting 'ant not recognized' build error
• [ ] * The contributing.md file offers a workaround for when building on Ubuntu and building but jar files are failing to build
• [ ] * Links to any mentioned 'technologies' home website for version and installation

Supporting Information

Related to epic #80, the contributing.md file could use a much more organized and chronological set of more specific instructions on what technologies are needed and how to build the project as well.

[Aleksander-Gomez]

I would like to be assigned this issue.

[jody]

"Before you do anything..." seems like hyperbole. That also makes it hard to validate.

Questions about the "step by step instructions with terminal/command lines" include: "Which OS and user interface are being described?" and "How many specific contexts need to be addressed in the documentation?" It seems to me that a basic *nix OS and standard shell (bash, csh, zsh, ...) would be appropriate. We just need to make some decisions.

What is meant by "packages"?

[Aleksander-Gomez]

After having talked about what we expect our audience to already know, Ive decided it better to suggest adding work-arounds to the contributing.md document for specific machines and problems that we've notice tend to arise when you try to follow the existing document. More specifically, Id like to add two small work-arounds for users who try to build with a mac and run into a build error like 'ant isn't a recognized command', and for Ubuntu users who have a problem building the jar files. Two small additions to the document so that future users can build and avoid those build problems.

[jody]

I agree. The approach you suggest is both highly valuable and feasible.

[jody]

Please update the Acceptance Criteria of this issue to reflect your new intent. (Once we agree upon those, I will add this issue to the project.)

[Aleksander-Gomez]

We agreed on adding the 'workarounds' under the apache ant package header, as more of 'for your convenience' tips for installing ant using package managers for specific machines.

[Aleksander-Gomez]

I'd like to suggest adding Junit as a tool in the contributing file. When you build this file, the build tool(ant) may be unable to locate the Junit library during the build, so users should make sure the JUnit JAR file is present in their project or is available in a directory that Ant can access.

[jody]

I'd like to suggest adding Junit as a tool in the contributing file.

I agree! Contributors would benefit from more extensive information about development tools, especially those that perform quality assessment on contributed code.