A Path from Drupal Newbie to Core Contributor

illustration of patrick

Patrick Storey answers a few questions about working with the Drupal community and contributing to Drupal core. Just goes to show you do not have to be a ninja programmer or have 30 years Drupal experience to have a positive impact in the Drupal community! Thanks, Patrick. :)

1. When did you start working with Drupal?

I started working with Drupal around a year and a half ago. I was working on a small site in WordPress when my older brother, John Storey, suggested I check out Drupal as he had about a decade's worth of experience using Drupal.

2. What's your favorite thing about Drupal development?

While this technically might not be a Drupal thing, I greatly enjoy the cat references or funny commentary I find while googling answers, or asking for answers on IRC, to my Drupal questions. To which… there are always more questions about what is going on with my Drupal site.

3. What was your first interaction with the "Drupal Community"?

My first interaction with the “Drupal Community” was at a Bay Area Drupal Learners Group Meetup hosted by Kalamuna. It was a welcoming experience to newcomers, and Kalamuna always provides booze and popcorn.

4. How did you start contributing to Drupal core?

I started contributing to Drupal core after spending hours trying to find something a newcomer to Drupal could do in the Drupal.org issue queue. I found the experience very troublesome and discouraging. Then Kristen Pol read about a mentorship by Cathy Theys to try to clean up that exact problem and help newcomers find ways to contribute to Drupal Core.

5. What types of contributions to you do?

Currently I review Drupal 8 issue queues and see if they are appropriately tagged with the Novice Tag or as I like to call it the “New Drupal Contributor” tag. I also help out with any Issue Reviews, Beta Evaluations, Patch re-rolls that I find as I go. I am now studying for my “Acquia Certified Developer” certification so I can help with all the patches I see that need reviews. I’ve noticed patches needing reviews are a HUGE need in the Community. I also wrote a blog about how I got started contributing and how any new contributor can start contributing too. (There is plenty of work to be done for this so please feel free to jump in!)

6. What's your favorite part of community work?

My favorite part of community work is the combination of being able to contribute back to Drupal, while getting to know those who contribute to Drupal. It’s almost universal that anyone who is contributing back to Drupal seems to be a really cool person. Everyone I have met is either far smarter than they have any right to be and/or has an amazing sense of humor. It’s also cool to think about after you helped out “Wow, the code I just wrote is going to be used by thousands and thousands of people to help them survive and feed their families”. That’s the kind of thing I think everyone can get behind.

7. What are some challenges of working with the Drupal community?

Some of the challenges are the “blah blah blah blah and something about my ego”. :-) As you might expect when in an open source environment, there are a lot of RIGHT ways to do things, and a lot of people who demand it be done their right way. But in order to make true progress in some cases we all have to decide on one way to proceed and follow it so we can have standards to our work.

8. What community work are you doing now?

Right now I’m working on running the Multilingual Sprints for NYC Camp so we can help get Drupal 8 over the finish line! NYC Camp runs from July 13th to July 19th at the United Nations! If you are interested in helping get Drupal 8 over the finish line, please sign up for the Drupal 8 Multilingual Sprints here!

9. What's next for you in the Drupalverse?

Next for me in the Drupalverse is: gain my “Acquia Certified Developer” certification, figure out how I can best help with BAD Camp, and start writing code that will allow Drupalers to spin up sites quickly and efficiently so they can make enough money to rent out entire apartments at the Trump Tower for their cats like they work for FIFA.

fifa-cat-apartment

 

Source: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/05/chuck-blazer-fifa-trump-tower-cats