WordPress.org

Dad: Well, Billy, another school year is coming to a close. No more college parties, just another summer here at home. What will you do all day?

Billy: Oh, I dunno. I’ll probably work on my blog or something.

Dad: You need more direction! That blog is just your generation’s answer to comic books.

Billy: On the contrary, Dad, working on my blog utilizes my skills in programming, design, writing, critical thinking, and all sorts of other liberal artsy things that you’re paying those professors to teach me.

Dad: If only there were a more practical application for those skills, one that could lead you to fame and fortune!

Billy: Where’ve you been living, Dad? My skills are totally in demand in today’s questionable economy. An awesome WordPress developer is worth his/her weight in gold. Lead, even.

Dad: What is this WordPress?

Billy: Only the greatest open source publishing platform ever created. It’s what runs my blog. I like to fiddle around with the code and come up with cool hacks that make mine better than the average College Joe’s.

Dad: I had no idea you were that capable.

Billy: Duh, Dad. I’ve been using WordPress for a couple of years now. I could practically teach a course on it, though there are definitely things I could learn from the lead devs. They are like kings.

Dad: Hm. That kind of ability ought to be worth something. Seems like there would be programs in place for kids like you to utilize your skills while being nurtured  by people like these lead kings.

Billy: Lead devs, Dad. Not lead kings.

Dad: Maybe you could apply for an internship or something, earn a little money this summer instead of just spending mine.

Billy: Well, there is this one thing like that.

Dad perks up.

Billy: The Google Summer of Code lets college students work with lead developers on a bunch of open source projects, you can get college credit for it, and if you do a good job, you can earn up to forty-five hundred bucks over the summer. And WordPress is one of the participating projects.

Dad: !!

Billy: But it’s pretty competitive. My friend Joe applied last year and didn’t make the cut. I can improve my skills just by fiddling around on my own this summer without the rejection, thanks.

Dad: Don’t be lame! You said yourself you’re awesome. And that you could learn from the kings. And that you could earn over FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS. Life is full of rejection, kid. Best way to get over that is to make yourself so awesome that no one wants to reject you. And know that even if they do reject you, there’s always next time.

Billy: I dunno, Dad.

Dad: Tell you what, if you apply, I’ll give you $500 toward that car you’ve been wanting, whether you’re accepted into the program or not. And if you get in and complete it successfully, I’ll match that $4500. I’d be so proud of you. And the bragging rights at work! My kid, a Google engineer!

Billy: I wouldn’t actually be a Google engineer, Dad.

Dad: Oh be quiet. Do you think Harold in shipping knows the difference?

Billy: Okay, Dad, I’ll do it!

Dad: That’s my boy.

…………………….

College students! Don’t wait for your parents to bribe you; apply to the Google Summer of Code program now! For the third year in a row, WordPress is participating, and this year we’ve got project suggestions ranging from core functionality to plugins and BuddyPress development. You name it, we want you to propose it. It’s true, competition is fierce, but hey, if you’re already hacking WordPress, you’re ahead of the pack as far as we’re concerned. Applications are being accepted as of today, and the deadline is on April 3, 2009. For more information, check out the WordPress Codex GSoC2009 page, where we suggest some projects and let you know who our kingly mentors will be this year. The GSoC FAQ is also a good place to get an overview of the program. To apply, head to the Google Summer of Code application site. Remember, we want *you* to work on WordPress this summer! And College Janes, this isn’t just for College Joes. Female applicants encouraged to apply!

A week or two ago at WordCamp Denver, I gave a presentation about some plans to create more opportunities for people to contribute to the WordPress open source project. The icon design contest was such a success that it seems clear we need to come up with ways for non-developers to contribute their talents and skills to WordPress. Since the launch of 2.7, we’ve been working out what kinds of contribution opportunities would make sense, and we’ve come up with a handful.

This (long) weekend, many WordPress users and developers (including half the core team) will be in Austin, TX for South by Southwest. Matt Mullenweg, Ryan Boren, Mark Jaquith and I will all be there, so say hello if you’re there, too. In the spirit of all this WordPress community connecting, I’ll be posting here every day during after SxSW with information about the new contribution opportunities we’re creating. Each post will cover one or more of the following:

• Development (of course)
• QA
• Documentation
• Ideas and Opinions
• User Experience
• Graphic Design
• Accessibility
• Usability Testing
• WordPress.tv
• Community Organizing

Since the first thing people think of when they think of contributing to WordPress is PHP development, we’ll start there.

The code (which is poetry) is the meat of the application, so it makes sense that the most opportunities to contribute will continue to fall in this area. Trac is always filled with tickets that need patches, patches that need testing, and issues that need some creative developer thinking/collaboration to find the right solution to a problem that has us going in circles.

If you are proficient in PHP, consider looking through the tickets (especially the ones marked “bug,” since they should get higher priority) and writing a patch for one of them. If you’ve got more advanced skills, consider writing a patch for one of the more complex tickets, or offering corrections to a patch submitted by someone else (if needed). If you don’t trust your coding skills but know your way around the application files, look for tickets tagged has-patch and test the patches in as many browsers as you can, posting your results afterward in the ticket thread.

If you find a bug in the course of your daily use of WordPress, report it. First, check Trac to see if the issue already has a ticket. You could also scan the archives of the wp-testers list to see if people have been talking about the bug, or email the list yourself to see if anyone has any information on the problem. If these actions don’t bear fruit, start a new ticket in Trac (you’ll need to create a login to do this). Be as detailed as you can about the issue, and don’t forget to make the proper selections from the metadata dropdown menus. Just in case anyone is unsure of how to make these selections…

Use the severity field with caution. Most bugs will be of normal severity. Marking a bug as high severity will not necessarily speed up development, and if it turns out that you’ve marked a bug’s severity incorrectly it may even slow down development.

Priority will usually be normal. Leave it to the more senior developers to change the status to a higher priority, as they are familiar with all the tickets and Trac and will be better able to assess the priority in relation to other tickets.

Ticket type. This is one of most misused fields, with many people marking tickets as defects that should not be. To address this, here’s a reminder of the ticket types and their intended uses. Your choices are: defect (bug), enhancement, feature request, and task (blessed).

• Defect (bug). Something is broken. You know how the feature is supposed to work (if you’re unsure, check the Codex or ask in the dev channel), but something has gone awry that needs to be fixed.
• Enhancement. Something is awkward or slow and could be designed or coded better without overhauling the function or screen design. Please don’t mark something as a defect (bug) if it is really an enhancement.
• Feature request. If there’s something that could be improved that would require significant restructuring of code or screen design, it should be marked as feature request rather than enhancement. Please note: this is not really the place to request features that are not currently in WordPress. Please continue to use the Ideas forum to suggest new features. The core developers will add new feature requests to Trac as they review the Ideas forum with each release cycle.
• Task (blessed). This type indicates approval from the core development team. Only core developers should use this selection. If you mark something as Task (blessed) yourself, you will have bad karma.

Bug Hunts*! If you have checked the Codex page for bug hunts lately, you’ll notice it’s been awhile since there was one. No more! Official bug hunts, sprints for finding and fixing bugs, will be brought back on a regular basis. The first one will be announced soon, possibly next week, to try and tackle the bug tickets related to widgets. (No need to wait, though, there are hundreds of open tickets in the 2.8 milestone just waiting for a kind developer to pay them some attention.)

As always, contributing developers can communicate with each other and with the core team in the #wordpress-dev IRC channel at irc.freenode.net, on the wp-hackers list, and in the ticket threads on Trac. Regular developer chats in IRC will be returning to Wednesdays at noon (Pacific time) starting next week.

[* – I used to love the bug hunt challenge in Space Cadet 3D Pinball back in the days of Windows 95]