Hey all, Let me start by saying that this is merely an idea I'm trying to put together and before doing so, I need to see who would be interested.
A short while ago, the Python community created something called "The Python Core Mentorship Program" [1][2] which is essentially an attempt to lower the barrier of entry to the Python core for new developers, students, etc. and connect everyone together in a more cohesive manner where people actually talk and interact. I strongly believe in such initiative and believe this is something we should also think about. Simply put, I'd love to put something together for the PHP core/internals where the goals of the program would be, not unlike the Python project, to get a few internals (Zend Contribs (Stas are you reading this? :P), Core contribs, PECL extensions developers, documentation maintainers) to be willing to help newcomers and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the contribution processes, internal trickeries, optimisations, etc. The general idea is to create a channel between the rest of the world and the internals of PHP where more experienced developers can transfer their knowledge and get a fresh perspectives from new developers that haven't approached the core before. Before continuing further into exploring this idea, we need to get volunteer mentors. The mentee process is likely to get a self-managed one and the mentors' role will hopefully be rather low in terms of time consumptions and the roles of the mentor will most likely be: - Introducing new developers to the processes - Answering questions - Helping with code review of patches Again, like the Python program and similarly to the GSOC projects, we should have a mailing list (restricted) dedicated only to the mentor (php-mentorship?) where anyone can ask the simpler questions. From this mailing list we should also be able to construct a solid baseline for new developers contributing to PHP. From the mailing list, we'll see what questions are coming over and over again we'll be able to build a wiki-faq-like sections for new contributors. I digress and here's what I'm hoping to achieve with this email: I want to get a few contributors from various aspects of the core including docs and pecl extensions willing to help new people. If you are interested, please raise your voice and if enough interest is displayed I'll get a proper wiki section started. Furthermore, one thing I am hoping this program will help bring is not only a stronger interest in the core and a fresh injection of talent but more importantly I hope we'll be able to contributors from our various communities that are scattered across the internet that barely ever interact with the internals. Hoping this email reaches as many of you and that my message is properly conveyed :-) P.S. This is really an attempt to find volunteers. If you are interested please feel free to contact me directly if you prefer so we can start organising whatever would have to be done: dav...@php.net References: [1]: http://pythonmentors.com/ [2]: http://jessenoller.com/2011/03/25/just-proposed-python-core-mentorship-program/ -- David Coallier Orchestra.io -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
