Core Contributor Handbook Update 14th February

Chat Log

We had a chat about the CCH last night. Here’s what we discussed:

• the tutorials on installing a desktop servers are nearly complete
• we discussed whether we need to provide tutorials for both SVNSVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/. and GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/.. We decided to de-prioritise Git for now and add it in the future if it’s needed
• we discussed the issue of duplication across the handbooks. At the minute this isn’t an issue but it’s something that will need to be addressed at some point.

We can either:
a) copy the content from one place to another and make adjustments to make that content relevant to that specific handbook
b) have a centralised repository where the content is stored and then pulled into the handbook that it’s needed.

Both have pros and cons:

a) duplicating the content means that we can make it very specific to the handbook it’s in. This is better for users but more difficult in terms of management and keeping things updated – we’ll have a lot more to keep up to date.
b) centralising content – this would mean that we’ll lose the specificity which could be a problem in some situations.

I’m going to do some research into how other documentation projects deal with this sort of thing.

• we had a discussion about article length. Some people like shorter articles, some people like longer.
• we discussed having some style advice with regards to language in the handbooks
• we need to have a free SVN GUI that we can recommend for Mac. @japheth recommended this: http://scplugin.tigris.org/ Other than that there is Versions but it’s a commercial product so I’m not sure if we can/should be recommending it.
• we discussed translating the handbooks. How is this going to be done?

Actions

• @rmccue to write up a general workflow for creating and submitting a patch
• me to extend the style guide to include: “American English, “setup” vs “set up”/”login” vs “log in”, comma rules”
• me to check with Simon Wheatley about the status of his multilingual pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party

We’ll keep working through the tutorials and aim to do as much as possible by the next meeting at 22:00 UTC on Wednesday 27th February

#cch, #handbooks