What could be very helpful here is some education for would-be Django developers. The tutorial format has worked so well for educating new Django users, why not apply it also to Django developers also? After the 1.2 release, why don't we come up with a Django developers tutorial that walks us through the process of solving issues and working on Django. The goal of this would be to help would-be developers understand the Django development process by getting their hands dirty with a real issue.
It could begin with a short explanation of the process, go through finding a real (old) example issue in Trac (already solved), it could run down what type of Trac activity is helpful and what is not. Then the tutorial could instruct the reader to checkout an old revision of Django (with the unsolved issue) and how to reproduce the issue. We could show the reader how to apply a bad patch (attached by some less-informed Trac user), then how to run the test suite and notice that some tests fail. Some instruction on how to politely note that fact on Trac might be in order as well as how the patch was rewritten in order to pass the tests. Another bit on proper documentation, some notes on quality, where to get help, what types of issues need discussion on this list would be great and I'm sure there's more that could be included with this type of tutorial. On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 9:09 AM, Jacob Kaplan-Moss <ja...@jacobian.org>wrote: > On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 3:34 PM, Gabriel Hurley <gab...@gmail.com> wrote: > > When I finally did submit my first patch, I was terrified of getting > > it wrong and having it rejected. I'd seen it happen on other tickets. > > It wasn't until I got *more involved* and started keeping up with the > > trac timeline--watching the ebb and flow of tickets--that I started to > > understand how the tone on trac had a reason. Until you get that > > perspective, it's hard to know what's right or wrong, and easy to take > > things personally. The core devs can seem imposing or scary simply > > because you don't know them. > > This is *really* good feedback, and thank you very much for it. > > Clearly scaring people isn't our intent, but if that's the result... > well, we're doing something wrong. I really don't want people to be > scared off, and I'm hearing from you and a few others that that's > already happening. > > I don't think I need to enumerate why the tone on a ticket tracker > tends towards the terse -- lack of time, repetition, yadayada -- but > regardless I don't like our process being scary. > > > If anything, my point is that getting started as a Django contributor > > *can* be difficult, and the core team just being aware of that fact is > > a good thing. > > I hear you loud and clear, and I'd love any suggestions you might have > about how we might improve in this area. > > Jacob > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to django-develop...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<django-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en. > > -- Stephen Crosby Web Developer lithostech.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To post to this group, send email to django-develop...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en.
