I would love to contribute...

[austindavis]

Hi my name is Austin Davis and I'm currently enrolled in Fort Lewis College. This semester I'm taking a class on open source software development. I have some programming experience with visual basic and (very little) java. I have designed databases(SQL). For this class specifically I need to provide proof that I've been accepted to work on a project and what my responsibilities are(ie Testing, Writing Descriptions for items magic...). So who would be considered a "super visor" that I could get approval from, to show my professor?

P.S I know this game is written in C++ and I plan on having my senior seminor paper be on C++, so that over the months I will be more capable of fixing code rather than just reporting problems in it.

[XuaXua]

DISCLAIMER: I am not one of the developers.

As far as I know, no special permission or approval is required to code.

Your best bet is to pull down a copy of the code from the GIT repository and get it to compile and run locally.

FIX BUGS
Then you need to look at the Mantis Bug Tracker issues and see what bugs need to be fixed.
I would suggest working with older bugs or feature requests.
Try to replicate the bug. If it still exists, make a note on the bug that you are looking into it, then check the code for problems and try to fix it.

CREATE FEATURES
Alternately, You can also check out the dev wiki and see what people want coded for the game and try that.

SUBMIT BUG FIX OR FEATURE PATCH TO MANTIS
Once your code is ready, there are instructions somewhere on how to create a patch that you can upload to the specific mantis bug.

A programmer who has access will then take your patch from Mantis and try to apply it.

Repeat.

Start here.

Once you earn your wings by coding acceptable stuff that is used for the current (Trunk) development build, I'm sure the experienced developers in the project will add your name, etc.

[XuaXua]

One thing you could do that needs doing is to help everyone else write lua scripts by going through the source and documenting all the crawl commands that are available to lua scripts and what they do.

Check this thread to get started: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2333&p=26823&hilit=lua#p26823

[galehar]

So who would be considered a "super visor" that I could get approval from, to show my professor?

We don't have any leader or supervisor and you don't need any approval to start working on the project. We can certainly write something to your professor as soon as you've made any significant contribution which has been accepted.
Fixing bugs is certainly a good way to start getting familiar with the code.