Contribution 5: Testing API Handlers for MindsDB

I realise that the website template open source project I contributed does not have a "community" aspect, and hence defeats the purpose of open source collaboration. Hence, I decided to give the first open source projct I contributed to (MindsDB) another go and tackle some of their issues.

After my first documentation contribution (LINK TO FIRST CONTRIBUTION) I was invited to the project's slack channel.

Although I find the project very interesting and liked the idea of briding machine learning solutions across cross-platforms, I still find contributing to the task daunting. Hence, I was happy that the lead developer suggested that I tackle testing and documenting API handlers.

I decided to do one of the few unassigned issues on testing API handlers (Link to issue). The issue I choose to do is "Test CrateDB Handler Manually #3769".

Goal:

Test if the API handler for specific SQL database management functions correctly (e.g. can retrieve data from specific databases, works with a prediction function, and make predictions).

Upon conducting the testing, I quickly realised that although MindsDB could connect to the database account, it failed to retrieve the data. I assume this was a backend issue because after conducting the same tests on other API handlers (that is, not CrateDB), it ran smoothly. I raise this issue in the comment section and am waiting for the lead developer's response on how to proceed.

Link to contribution in issue: https://github.com/mindsdb/mindsdb/issues/3769

Status:

Error reported and waiting for answer on how to proceed.

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Reflection

In this contribution, I was able to apply the skills from Week 10 talked about Documentation, and Week 1 and 3 about Version Control.

For this contribution, the documentation process is slightly different. Instead of documenting how a function or feature works, I had to document an error. This was particularly challenging because MindDB has a template or guideline for documenting how a function or feature should work, but has no guideline or template on how to document an error.

Hence, for this contribution, I tried my best to outline the problem as clearly and concisely as I can.

Additionally, It has been around 3 weeks since I opened or pull the latest version of the project. So the first thing I did was to "git rebase master" so that I have the latest version on my computer.