2 Sep

Brian Gilbert

The Realityloop team have been contributing at DrupalCon sprints since 2010, mentoring at sprints since 2013, and I've personally been a lead mentor at sprints since DrupalCon Austin last year. To Realityloop the best way to help an open source project thrive is to contribute back and this is one of the ways that we do that.  The whole Realityloop whole team we be mentoring at DrupalCon Barcelona so we'd love to see you attending.

What is a Sprint?

A sprint is simply a get-together of people involved in a project to further a focused development of the project. In the DrupalCon context it's where we all get to sit in a room together and make Drupal better.

Come join us at the DrupalCon sprints

DrupalCon Barcelona is only a few weeks away, and as usual there will be a lot of sprinting happening around and during the event! 

If you are interested in contributing - and we'd love you to get involved - there are a lot of resources available. If you've never contributed in the past you shouldn't assume you don't have the skills to contribute. Many of the things being worked on need people with experience in things other than coding, such as; design, project management, writing documentation, dev ops, testing, user experience, marketing, or just helping hands. 

If you will be mentoring at the First Time Sprinters Workshop we really appreciate you giving your time to help get new people involved.

To all who contribute, open source projects thrive with contribution from their communities so by contributing you are changing the world and directly helping Drupal grow. For that we thank-you!

On the Internet

Check the Barcelona website for the sprint schedule and location information. Sprinting is generally happening all the time and at multiple locations, if you will be mentoring keep an eye on the BoF schedule for the mentoring and triaging sessions.

On the Drupal website you can also find a lot of information on ways to get involved in the Drupal project and core mentoring or how to set up a local Drupal development environment for the First Time Sprinters workshop, how to use the issue queue and tasks for new contributors.

During the conference

At the conference there will be a Core Mentoring booth in the Exhibit Hall (booth 100), It is staffed by mentor volunteers and if you have questions about getting involved, being mentored.. or becoming a mentor, or anything else related to contributing please pay us a visit we'll be happy to answer your questions.

On the Friday after a DrupalCon there is always an all-day sprint. The attendees of this sprint will typically be working on any one of Drupal core, contributed modules and themes, Drupal related project, and even Drupal.org itself.

• • First-Time Sprinter Workshop
    If this will be your first Drupal sprint or you need help setting up your computer, then the First-Time Sprinter Workshop in room 116 is especially for you. It is hed in the morning of the Friday sprint, and mentors will be on hand to help you get setup and learn about the various tools used for contributing. If you do not have a working Drupal 8 environment on your machine installed from the git repositry, please attend this workshop. The mentors at this workshop will be focused on getting you ready to contribute so you can spend the afternoon at the..
     
     
  • Mentored Core Sprint
    This is all day session is where new contributors can come to get mentored help. Mentors at the Mentored Core Sprint in room 115 will help you pair up with another new contributor or several contributors, find an issue or issues that you are interested in to work on together, and work through the process of contributing. All skill levels and roles are welcome. This is not a developer only event. If you don't yet have a Drupal 8 development environment installed via git then for your benefit it is suggested to attend the First-Time Sprinter workshop before coming to this room.
     
     
  • General Sprints
    Experienced contributors are encouraged to attend the all-day General Sprints in room 114. Typically contributors in this area form groups to work on key initiatives, or you can form your own.
     

     

A reminder to sprint leads, mentors and experienced contributors

Make some time before the conference begins to update your issues. If you have easier issues tag them as "Novice", and review your issues for missing tags, especially ones that less experienced contributors or non-developers can assist with. some of these might be; rerolls, manual testing, change notice updates, or documentation

The mentoring team will be triaging the issue queue throughout the week. If you are interested in helping please attend the related BoF to discuss and pick issues appropriate for the Friday sprint.

Also, remember that extended sprints actually start on the 19th September, so it would be great if you can find time to update things before then.

Moral of the story

If your attending a DrupalCon and not attending the Sprints, your really missing out on a quite large part of the DrupalCon experience just one of the reasons I would urge anyone interested to get involved and contribute.

You'll get to make a lot of new friends and help make Drupal a better project, learn to be a better coder if that is your interest, find smart people to collaborate with, grow your karma quotient, have a lot of fun and maybe even get on stage for a live code commit!

Even if you're not a coder, you can be confirming bug reports, testing patches, writing documentation, creating marketing or training materials, planning event logistics, or even organizing your own local code sprint or camp... and this is just a small selection of the stuff that you'll be able to do as a contributor. Come change the world!

drupal planet