Help - as a beginner how to get started to contribute

[Michael Han <lianghancn at gmail dot com>]

Hello GCC experts!

I am looking for entry points to jump in GCC development, espcially
back ends. For me I am generally interested in compiler construction,
had written a C89 compatible compiler front end in C (lburg for CG in
back end) as one of my hobby projects, and rudimental knowledge on GCC
(most from gcc internal doc), with some other experience on
performance tuning (assembly level) so I am not a complete newbie to
compiler and I think I should move on to get hands dirty on larger
projects like GCC..

I have checked "Simple GCC Projects" page
(http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/beginner.html), which looks like a good
starting point. Any suggestions on how to get started to take one of
the projects there? For example, the first project in optimizer
section is "Make insn-recog.c use a byte-coded DFA", first I am not
sure if this is still applicable (as it might be already done because
I haven't found any file named insn-recog.c in current code base), and
second how can I get contact with the origniator of the project to get
more contact information?

Alternatively I can start on bug fixing - which may or may not
appropriate for a beginner who doesn't know much about the code base.
Anyways, any guidance is much appreciated. I've heard people
complaining the intimidating code base of gcc but I have my curiosity
and (hopefully) a lot spare time so that won't be a problem..

Thanks in advance
~Michael
-- 
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it