[documentation] Barriers to entry...

[Jennifer Hodgdon]

Ariane Khachatourians wrote:
> Re: Barriers to entry [...]

> I would hope that most people *would* have an inclination to learn further
> (and if they choose not to, then that is a fair choice).  [...]

> 1. Having someone walk me through setting up a local install on MAMP, use
> PHPmyadmin, and getting a basic list of what commands I needed to know in
> command line.
> 
> 2. Having the issue queue/patch review workflow explained and shown to me,
> along with learning the commands to apply and revert patches, do a diff, and
> reset my codebase to HEAD.
> 
> 3. And this is not *necessary* but having at least a willingness to learn to
> read (and hopefully one day, write, code). I have so far self-learned HTML
> and CSS (with help from friends and coworkers), and can sort of fumble my
> way through reading PHP to the point where I can cut and paste things into
> the right place. But that is something people have to be pretty self driven
> to accomplish.

Maybe we should have some sessions on these things at DCSF? I guess it 
merits several sessions:

a) Setting up a test box (WinAMP, MAMP, LAMP) for Drupal, including 
PHPMyAdmin and command-line basics.

b) CVS basics (getting CVS set up, making patches, commands, updating 
your Drupal installation, etc.), and finding your way around the issue 
queue.

c) Basics of PHP for doc writers and themers (with the aim of being 
able to understand what it is doing, and edit text/markup embedded in 
the code).

Thoughts? I could do B and C; not so sure about (a), as I only know 
about LAMP on Ubuntu. And maybe (b) is too much for one session, and 
it should be split into two parts?

    --Jennifer

-- 
Jennifer Hodgdon * Poplar ProductivityWare
www.poplarware.com
Drupal, WordPress, and custom Web programming