Contributing to Open Source

Presented at WordCamp Milwaukee 2012. I make the case for both why you should contribute to open source and how to get started.

Transcript

1. Contributing to Open Source
   Joel Clermont
   @jclermont
   Thursday, July 19, 12
   

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2. About Me
   • Partner at Orion Group
   • PHP, JS, .NET, Ruby, iOS, (Lisp?)
   • Organizer of Milwaukee PHP User Group mkepug.com
   • Organizer of MobileMKE meetup.com/MobileMKE
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3. Goals for today
   • Why should I contribute to open source?
   • What types of help is needed?
   • How do I make a meaningful contribution?
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4. Why? What’s in it for me?
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5. The altruistic reason
   • Give something back to the community
   • How much does a WordPress license cost again?
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6. Commercial CMS licenses
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7. Thursday, July 19, 12
   

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8. The selfish reasons
   • Make your own life easier (fix a bug, improve docs, etc)
   • Scratch your own itch (build something entirely new)
   • Resume/career booster (good for freelancers too)
   • Get experience and become a better developer
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9. Selfish reasons > Altruistic reason
   • But who cares? Everyone benefits
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10. What? Not just code
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11. Neckbeard and CompSci degrees are optional
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12. Help wanted
    • Documentation http://codex.wordpress.org/Codex:Contributing
    • Translation http://codex.wordpress.org/Translating_WordPress
    • Testing http://codex.wordpress.org/Mailing_Lists#Testers
    • Bugs http://core.trac.wordpress.org/
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13. More than just PHP
    • Mobile platforms are open source too
    • HTML / CSS / JS required for themes and plugins
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14. Help the larger WordPress ecosystem
    • Plugins
    • Themes
    • Utilities
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15. How? Ready to dive in?
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16. How to get started
    • Work on something that interests you personally
    • Follow the coding standards
    • http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Coding_Standards
    • Understand the community
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17. Communicate
    • Mailing lists
    • http://codex.wordpress.org/Mailing_Lists
    • IRC
    • #wordpress and #wordpress-dev on Freenode
    • Forums
    • http://wordpress.org/support
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18. Get involved with the broader community
    • Github
    • Attend events
    • Volunteer to speak
    Milwaukee PHP
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19. PHP Code Sniffer for WordPress
    • Simple fix, but incredibly useful
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20. Search Replace DB utility
    • Didn’t work with my wp-config setup
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21. Removing code feels good
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22. Learning something new
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23. Vulnero (v2)
    • Just started architecture/design
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24. Useful Links
    • OpenHatch - “training level” for open source
    • http://openhatch.org/missions/
    • WordPress developer documentation
    • http://codex.wordpress.org/Developer_Documentation
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25. What next?
    • Start small, but start soon
    • Slides posted on joelclermont.com this evening
    • Contact me for help / questions
    • Twitter @jclermont
    • #devmke (freenode)
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