My First Open Source Code Contribution

Ah, my first open source code contribution. I specify "code" contribution bc I guess answering some questions in forums has it's merit. I usually take more than I give to be honest.

Anyways, I made my first code contribution today to my first love, that is drupal. I submitted a tiny patch that might even be rejected to the currency module on drupal. I was happy that I figured out how to checkout the module from the drupal cvs repository using eclipse (I might have to post later on how much I love eclipse), then I made a small change, created a patch using eclipse (thank you!) and posted the patch back to the project on the module project page. To some this is probably trivial, but to me this is a milestone.

I didn't get the point of CVS for a long time. I didn't start using it until I started working at my full time job in Little Rock. I used it for ab a year and then we made the switch to SVN which is even more marvelous.

Even after using CVS for a year I still really had no idea how to set up my own CVS repository on our dedicated server, but with a little help from our hosting company and some research, I fumbled my way through it and figured out how to checkout and commit changes using eclipse, yay! That was a massive milestone. I also created a deploy script that would deploy projects from CVS from the command line making deployments much easier, yay again. Another milestone!

OK so I haven't exactly figured out how to set up SVN which I think is better, but I'll leave that for another day.

Today's topic is contributing to open source. I actually figured out how to create a patch and post it back to the project. I'm thrilled. I feel so alive! OK, that feeling is bound to wear off. I suppose it's similar to the first time I outsourced overseas. I couldn't sleep I was so excited! I've done it several times since and not been really thrilled with the results (a lot of miscommunication, over-promising and under-delivering). Anyways, maybe it will be like that.

I really like working on projects with other developers tho. With Lynxmark, I'm a one man show so I don't get to work alongside other programmers at all really. Only a couple times, I've done it and I hadn't had CVS set up at that time.

Open sourcing things seems to have quite the alure to me. I envision creating CVS projects on drupal's sites for things I'm working on in our "e-commerce generic solutions" (see my other blog posts) and using the community to test and make those modules better. Not sure if it will work out or not. I just love how module drupal is and the fact that you have a large community who knows the "drupal" way to do things so that you can semi-be-on-the-same-page with other developers. I don't know, I might try it out, we'll see. I just thing that code with more eyes on has a better chance of survival in this world where code routinely finds itself extinct.

Any thoughts out there on the subject? (I'm pretending like someone reads my blog...someday Jay...someday...)