[wp-hackers] Developer Portal

[Rhonda Johnson]

I'm not sure why my post was cut off.  Trying again.  Sorry.

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 12:29 AM, Rhonda Johnson <rhonda1964 at gmail.com>wrote:

> I want very much to share my thoughts with everyone on the matter of the
> developer portal so I joined the mailing list to read up on what others are
> saying.  I have actually learned a lot just from reading the mailing list
> archives all day today.  Many people have offered many great suggestions
> that I agree with and I believe I do have some things to add ass well.
>
> From my point of view, even 2 years into working with self
> hosted WordPress, on Godaddy, and locally hosted, on my laptop, the thing
> I would still find most useful to this day is a list of prerequisites I
> should master before tackling any particular tasks.  The ultimate task
> would be to call myself aWordPress Developer so that the master list of
> prerequisites leads to, well, mastery.
>
> I would suggest that this master list of prerequisites assume only that the
> user knows how to use a computer.  I'm not asking for tutorials on
> everything from HTML to complete mastery, there is plenty of that stuff out
> there already.  I'm just asking for a complete list of prerequisites.  I
> would ask that you compile this list with the following audience in mind:
>
> A 14-year-old high school freshman who has had his/her hands on computers
> practically since birth.  This high school freshman is comfortable with a
> keyboard and mouse, is familiar with many software applications and learns
> them intuitively, navigating the internet is second nature but programming
> is not,(yet.)  This freshman has just discovered WordPress and decides she
> wants to be a WordPress Developer when she grows up.  He/she wants to
> someday be able to not only build entire websites from the ground up but to
> also be able to contribute to the core development of WordPress and maybe
> even other open source projects.
>
>  What are the skills this potential future WordPress developer can begin to
> develop?  (I’m not a 14-year-old high school student, I just believe that
> targeting the list of prerequisites towards a computer
> savvy 14-year-old budding future WordPress developer is more likely to
> inspiring a complete list of prerequisite skills than asking you to target
> the list to people who are already skilled developers.)
>
> WHERE TO BEGIN
>
> WORDPRESS.COM - What is it and what are the skills that can be learned
> there?
>
> BLOGGING, CONTENT MANAGEMENT, PLUGINS, WIDGETS, ETC
>
> What skills and level of mastery is necessary for what tasks?
>
> SELF HOSTED WORDPRESS
>
> WORDPRESS.ORG
>
> WHAT IS SELF HOSTING - the knowledge and skills one needs to master to self
> host.
>
> WORDPRESS AS BLOGGING PLATFORM -
>
>  WORDPRESS AS CMS -HTML, XHTML, CSS, PHP, MYSQL,
>
> Here it would be nice to know what skills does one need to acquire BEFORE
> running to the WP community to ask a question such as "how do I get my posts
> to sort alphabetically by category?" or, "how do I change the colors in my
> theme?" etc.
>
> What are the concepts necessary to understand prior to customizing a theme?
>
> What are the skills necessary to master before I attempt to build plugins?
>
> What level of understanding should I have about what concepts before I
> attempt to submit bug report?
>
>  A skill set that might be a prerequisite of participating in the community
> is OPEN SOURCE ETIQUETTE.  There should be a course.
>
> Give back to the community
>
> Be respectful
>
> Do some research before participating in discussions or asking questions.
>
> Be sure you have achieved mastery of the prerequisites for the related
> topics or tasks before asking questions or trying to participate. (This
> assumes that prerequisites are clearly spelled out somewhere.)
>
> (This is not meant to be a complete list, just a place to start.)
>
> All I'm asking is for a list of skills necessary to move up to the next
> level, whatever that next level happens to be, customizing themes,
> building plugins, contributing patches, etc.
>
>  Here I’d just like to add that I am a big fan of the entire WP community.
> Thank you all so much!  There is already a great deal of information out
> there.  For a developer portal I don’t see any reason to repeat all the
> information that’s already out there, just tell me what skills I need to
> master and maybe point me in the right direction.  Anything above and beyond
> that is just awesomeness on the part of the community.
>
> Nice to meet you all,
>
> Rhonda
>
> --
> http://everything-south-padre-island.com
>



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