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[1.2.X] Fixed #14401 -- Added a contributing howto guide for new users. Thank you to everyone who added their advice, feedback, and wisdom to the wiki article while constructing this new guide.

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===========================
How to contribute to Django
===========================
Django is developed 100% by the community, and the more people that are actively
involved in the code the better Django will be. We recognize that contributing
to Django can be daunting at first and sometimes confusing even to
veterans. While we have our official "Contributing to Django" documentation
which spells out the technical details of triaging tickets and submitting
patches, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. This guide aims to offer
more general advice on issues such as how to interpret the various stages and
flags in Trac, and how new contributors can get started.
.. seealso::
This guide is meant to answer the most common questions about
contributing to Django, however it is no substitute for the
:doc:`/internals/contributing` reference. Please make sure to
read that document to understand the specific details
involved in reporting issues and submitting patches.
.. _the-spirit-of-contributing:
"The Spirit of Contributing"
============================
Django uses Trac_ for managing our progress, and Trac is a community-tended
garden of the bugs people have found and the features people would like to see
added. As in any garden, sometimes there are weeds to be pulled and sometimes
there are flowers and vegetables that need picking. We need your help to sort
out one from the other, and in the end we all benefit together.
Like all gardens, we can aspire to perfection but in reality there's no such
thing. Even in the most pristine garden there are still snails and insects. In a
community garden there are also helpful people who--with the best of
intentions--fertilize the weeds and poison the roses. It's the job of the
community as a whole to self-manage, keep the problems to a minimum, and educate
those coming into the community so that they can become valuable contributing
members.
Similarly, while we aim for Trac to be a perfect representation of the state of
Django's progress, we acknowledge that this simply will not happen. By
distributing the load of Trac maintenance to the community, we accept that there
will be mistakes. Trac is "mostly accurate", and we give allowances for the fact
that sometimes it will be wrong. That's okay. We're perfectionists with
deadlines.
We rely on the community to keep participating, keep tickets as accurate as
possible, and raise issues for discussion on our mailing lists when there is
confusion or disagreement.
Django is a community project, and every contribution helps. We can't do this
without YOU!
.. _Trac: http://code.djangoproject.com/
Understanding Trac
==================
Trac is Django's sole official issue tracker. All known bugs, desired features
and ideas for changes are logged there.
However, Trac can be quite confusing even to veteran contributors. Having to
look at both flags and triage stages isn't immediately obvious, and the stages
themselves can be misinterpreted.
What Django's triage stages "really mean"
-----------------------------------------
Unreviewed
~~~~~~~~~~
The ticket has not been reviewed by anyone who felt qualified to make a judgment
about whether the ticket contained a valid issue, a viable feature, or ought to
be closed for any of the various reasons.
Accepted
~~~~~~~~
The big grey area! The absolute meaning of "accepted" is that the issue
described in the ticket is valid and is in some stage of being worked on. Beyond
that there are several considerations
* **Accepted + No Flags**
The ticket is valid, but no one has submitted a patch for it yet. Often this
means you could safely start writing a patch for it.
* **Accepted + Has Patch**
The ticket is waiting for people to review the supplied patch. This means
downloading the patch and trying it out, verifying that it contains tests and
docs, running the test suite with the included patch, and leaving feedback on
the ticket.
* **Accepted + Has Patch + (any other flag)**
This means the ticket has been reviewed, and has been found to need further
work. "Needs tests" and "Needs documentation" are self-explanatory. "Patch
needs improvement" will generally be accompanied by a comment on the ticket
explaining what is needed to improve the code.
Design Decision Needed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This stage is for issues which may be contentious, may be backwards
incompatible, or otherwise involve high-level design decisions. These decisions
are generally made by the core committers, however that is not a
requirement. See the FAQ below for "My ticket has been in DDN forever! What
should I do?"
Ready For Checkin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ticket was reviewed by any member of the community other than the person who
supplied the patch and found to meet all the requirements for a commit-ready
patch. A core committer now needs to give the patch a final review prior to
being committed. See the FAQ below for "My ticket has been in RFC forever! What
should I do?"
Someday/Maybe?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Generally only used for vague/high-level features or design ideas. These tickets
are uncommon and overall less useful since they don't describe concrete
actionable issues.
Fixed on a branch
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Used to indicate that a ticket is resolved as part of a major body of work that
will eventually be merged to trunk. Tickets in this stage generally don't need
further work. This may happen in the case of major features/refactors in each
release cycle, or as part of the annual Google Summer of Code efforts.
Example Trac workflow
---------------------
Here we see the life-cycle of an average ticket:
* Alice creates a ticket, and uploads an incomplete patch (no tests, incorrect
implementation).
* Bob reviews the patch, marks it "Accepted", "needs tests", and "patch needs
improvement", and leaves a comment telling Alice how the patch could be
improved.
* Alice updates the patch, adding tests (but not changing the
implementation). She removes the two flags.
* Charlie reviews the patch and resets the "patch needs improvement" flag with
another comment about improving the implementation.
* Alice updates the patch, fixing the implementation. She removes the "patch
needs improvement" flag.
* Daisy reviews the patch, and marks it RFC.
* Jacob reviews the RFC patch, applies it to his checkout, and commits it.
Some tickets require much less feedback than this, but then again some tickets
require much much more.
Advice for new contributors
===========================
New contributor and not sure what to do? Want to help but just don't know how to
get started? This is the section for you.
* **Pick a subject area that you care about, that you are familiar with, or that
you want to learn about.**
You don't already have to be an expert on the area you want to work on; you
become an expert through your ongoing contributions to the code.
* **Triage tickets.**
If a ticket is unreviewed and reports a bug, try and duplicate it. If you can
duplicate it and it seems valid, make a note that you confirmed the bug and
accept the ticket. Make sure the ticket is filed under the correct component
area. Consider writing a patch that adds a test for the bug's behavior, even
if you don't fix the bug itself.
* **Look for tickets that are accepted and review patches to build familiarity
with the codebase and the process.**
Mark the appropriate flags if a patch needs docs or tests. Look through the
changes a patch makes, and keep an eye out for syntax that is incompatible
with older but still supported versions of Python. Run the tests and make sure
they pass on your system. Where possible and relevant, try them out on a
database other than SQLite. Leave comments and feedback!
* **Keep old patches up to date.**
Oftentimes the codebase will change between a patch being submitted and the
time it gets reviewed. Make sure it still applies cleanly and functions as
expected. Simply updating a patch is both useful and important!
* **Trac isn't an absolute; the context is just as important as the words.**
When reading Trac, you need to take into account who says things, and when
they were said. Support for an idea two years ago doesn't necessarily mean
that the idea will still have support. You also need to pay attention to who
*hasn't* spoken -- for example, if a core team member hasn't been recently
involved in a discussion, then a ticket may not have the support required to
get into trunk.
* **Start small.**
It's easier to get feedback on a little issue than on a big one.
* **If you're going to engage in a big task, make sure that your idea has
support first.**
This means getting someone else to confirm that a bug is real before you fix
the issue, and ensuring that the core team supports a proposed feature before
you go implementing it.
* **Be bold! Leave feedback!**
Sometimes it can be scary to put your opinion out to the world and say "this
ticket is correct" or "this patch needs work", but it's the only way the
project moves forward. The contributions of the broad Django community
ultimately have a much greater impact than that of the core developers. We
can't do it without YOU!
* **Err on the side of caution when marking things Ready For Check-in.**
If you're really not certain if a ticket is ready, don't mark it as
such. Leave a comment instead, letting others know your thoughts. If you're
mostly certain, but not completely certain, you might also try asking on IRC
to see if someone else can confirm your suspicions.
* **Wait for feedback, and respond to feedback that you receive.**
Focus on one or two tickets, see them through from start to finish, and
repeat. The shotgun approach of taking on lots of tickets and letting some
fall by the wayside ends up doing more harm than good.
* **Be rigorous.**
When we say ":pep:`8`, and must have docs and tests", we mean it. If a patch
doesn't have docs and tests, there had better be a good reason. Arguments like
"I couldn't find any existing tests of this feature" don't carry much
weight--while it may be true, that means you have the extra-important job of
writing the very first tests for that feature, not that you get a pass from
writing tests altogether.
.. note::
The `Reports page`_ contains links to many useful Trac queries, including
several that are useful for triaging tickets and reviewing patches as
suggested above.
.. _Reports page: http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/Reports
FAQs
====
**This ticket I care about has been ignored for days/weeks/months! What can I do
to get it committed?**
* First off, it's not personal. Django is entirely developed by volunteers (even
the core devs), and sometimes folks just don't have time. The best thing to do
is to send a gentle reminder to the Django Developers mailing list asking for
review on the ticket, or to bring it up in the #django-dev IRC channel.
**I'm sure my ticket is absolutely 100% perfect, can I mark it as RFC myself?**
* Short answer: No. It's always better to get another set of eyes on a
ticket. If you're having trouble getting that second set of eyes, see question
1, above.
**My ticket has been in DDN forever! What should I do?**
* Design Decision Needed requires consensus about the right solution. At the
very least it needs consensus among the core developers, and ideally it has
consensus from the community as well. The best way to accomplish this is to
start a thread on the Django Developers mailing list, and for very complex
issues to start a wiki page summarizing the problem and the possible
solutions.

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@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ you quickly accomplish common tasks.
apache-auth
auth-remote-user
contribute
custom-management-commands
custom-model-fields
custom-template-tags

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@ -158,11 +158,9 @@ Once you've claimed a ticket, you have a responsibility to work on that ticket
in a reasonably timely fashion. If you don't have time to work on it, either
unclaim it or don't claim it in the first place!
Ticket triagers go through the list of claimed tickets from time to
time, checking whether any progress has been made. If there's no sign of
progress on a particular claimed ticket for a week or two, a triager may ask
you to relinquish the ticket claim so that it's no longer monopolized and
somebody else can claim it.
If there's no sign of progress on a particular claimed ticket for a week or
two, another developer may ask you to relinquish the ticket claim so that it's
no longer monopolized and somebody else can claim it.
If you've claimed a ticket and it's taking a long time (days or weeks) to code,
keep everybody updated by posting comments on the ticket. If you don't provide
@ -185,20 +183,21 @@ Patch style
* Make sure your code matches our `coding style`_.
* Submit patches in the format returned by the ``svn diff`` command.
An exception is for code changes that are described more clearly in plain
English than in code. Indentation is the most common example; it's hard to
read patches when the only difference in code is that it's indented.
An exception is for code changes that are described more clearly in
plain English than in code. Indentation is the most common example; it's
hard to read patches when the only difference in code is that it's
indented.
Patches in ``git diff`` format are also acceptable.
* When creating patches, always run ``svn diff`` from the top-level
``trunk`` directory -- i.e., the one that contains ``django``, ``docs``,
``tests``, ``AUTHORS``, etc. This makes it easy for other people to apply
your patches.
``tests``, ``AUTHORS``, etc. This makes it easy for other people to
apply your patches.
* Attach patches to a ticket in the `ticket tracker`_, using the "attach file"
button. Please *don't* put the patch in the ticket description or comment
unless it's a single line patch.
* Attach patches to a ticket in the `ticket tracker`_, using the "attach
file" button. Please *don't* put the patch in the ticket description
or comment unless it's a single line patch.
* Name the patch file with a ``.diff`` extension; this will let the ticket
tracker apply correct syntax highlighting, which is quite helpful.
@ -209,11 +208,12 @@ Patch style
* The code required to fix a problem or add a feature is an essential part
of a patch, but it is not the only part. A good patch should also include
a regression test to validate the behavior that has been fixed (and prevent
the problem from arising again).
a regression test to validate the behavior that has been fixed
(and prevent the problem from arising again).
* If the code associated with a patch adds a new feature, or modifies behavior
of an existing feature, the patch should also contain documentation.
* If the code associated with a patch adds a new feature, or modifies
behavior of an existing feature, the patch should also contain
documentation.
Non-trivial patches
-------------------
@ -233,8 +233,8 @@ the `required details`_. A number of tickets have patches, but those patches
don't meet all the requirements of a `good patch`_.
One way to help out is to *triage* bugs that have been reported by other
users. A couple of dedicated volunteers work on this regularly, but more help
is always appreciated.
users. The core team--as well as many community members--work on this
regularly, but more help is always appreciated.
Most of the workflow is based around the concept of a ticket's "triage stage".
This stage describes where in its lifetime a given ticket is at any time.
@ -248,15 +248,18 @@ Since a picture is worth a thousand words, let's start there:
:width: 590
:alt: Django's ticket workflow
We've got two official roles here:
We've got two roles in this diagram:
* Core developers: people with commit access who make the big decisions
and write the bulk of the code.
* Core developers: people with commit access who are responsible for
making the big decisions, writing large portions of the code and
integrating the contributions of the community.
* Ticket triagers: trusted community members with a proven history of
working with the Django community. As a result of this history, they
have been entrusted by the core developers to make some of the smaller
decisions about tickets.
* Ticket triagers: anyone in the Django community who chooses to
become involved in Django's development process. Our Trac installation
is :ref:`intentionally left open to the public
<the-spirit-of-contributing>`, and anyone can triage tickets.
Django is a community project, and we encourage `triage by the
community`_.
Second, note the five triage stages:
@ -279,22 +282,22 @@ Second, note the five triage stages:
adding to the framework if an excellent patch is submitted. These
tickets are not a high priority.
5. If a ticket has an associated patch (see below), a triager will review
the patch. If the patch is complete, it'll be marked as "ready for
checkin" so that a core developer knows to review and check in the
patches.
5. If a ticket has an associated patch (see below), it will be reviewed
by the community. If the patch is complete, it'll be marked as "ready
for checkin" so that a core developer knows to review and commit the
patch.
The second part of this workflow involves a set of flags the describe what the
ticket has or needs in order to be "ready for checkin":
"Has patch"
This means the ticket has an associated patch_. These will be
reviewed by the triage team to see if the patch is "good".
reviewed to see if the patch is "good".
"Needs documentation"
This flag is used for tickets with patches that need associated
documentation. Complete documentation of features is a prerequisite
before we can check a fix into the codebase.
before we can check them into the codebase.
"Needs tests"
This flags the patch as needing associated unit tests. Again, this is a
@ -303,12 +306,13 @@ ticket has or needs in order to be "ready for checkin":
"Patch needs improvement"
This flag means that although the ticket *has* a patch, it's not quite
ready for checkin. This could mean the patch no longer applies
cleanly, or that the code doesn't live up to our standards.
cleanly, there is a flaw in the implementation, or that the code
doesn't meet our standards.
A ticket can be resolved in a number of ways:
"fixed"
Used by one of the core developers once a patch has been rolled into
Used by the core developers once a patch has been rolled into
Django and the issue is fixed.
"invalid"
@ -321,8 +325,10 @@ A ticket can be resolved in a number of ways:
"wontfix"
Used when a core developer decides that this request is not
appropriate for consideration in Django. This is usually chosen after
discussion in the ``django-developers`` mailing list, and you should
feel free to join in when it's something you care about.
discussion in the ``django-developers`` mailing list. Feel free to
start or join in discussions of "wontfix" tickets on the mailing list,
but please do not reopen tickets closed as "wontfix" by core
developers.
"duplicate"
Used when another ticket covers the same issue. By closing duplicate
@ -334,27 +340,29 @@ A ticket can be resolved in a number of ways:
If you believe that the ticket was closed in error -- because you're
still having the issue, or it's popped up somewhere else, or the triagers have
-- made a mistake, please reopen the ticket and tell us why. Please do not
reopen tickets that have been marked as "wontfix" by core developers.
made a mistake -- please reopen the ticket and provide further information.
Please do not reopen tickets that have been marked as "wontfix" by core
developers.
.. _required details: `Reporting bugs`_
.. _good patch: `Patch style`_
.. _triage by the community: `Triage by the general community`_
.. _patch: `Submitting patches`_
Triage by the general community
-------------------------------
Although the core developers and ticket triagers make the big decisions in
the ticket triage process, there's also a lot that general community
members can do to help the triage process. In particular, you can help out by:
Although the core developers make the big decisions in the ticket triage
process, there's a lot that general community members can do to help the
triage process. In particular, you can help out by:
* Closing "Unreviewed" tickets as "invalid", "worksforme" or "duplicate."
* Promoting "Unreviewed" tickets to "Design decision needed" if a design
decision needs to be made, or "Accepted" in case of obvious bugs.
* Correcting the "Needs tests", "Needs documentation", or "Has patch" flags
for tickets where they are incorrectly set.
* Correcting the "Needs tests", "Needs documentation", or "Has patch"
flags for tickets where they are incorrectly set.
* Adding the `easy-pickings`_ keyword to tickets that are small and
relatively straightforward.
@ -363,15 +371,15 @@ members can do to help the triage process. In particular, you can help out by:
any activity in a long time, it's possible that the problem has been
fixed but the ticket hasn't yet been closed.
* Contacting the owners of tickets that have been claimed but have not seen
any recent activity. If the owner doesn't respond after a week or so,
remove the owner's claim on the ticket.
* Contacting the owners of tickets that have been claimed but have not
seen any recent activity. If the owner doesn't respond after a week
or so, remove the owner's claim on the ticket.
* Identifying trends and themes in the tickets. If there a lot of bug reports
about a particular part of Django, it may indicate we should consider
refactoring that part of the code. If a trend is emerging, you should
raise it for discussion (referencing the relevant tickets) on
`django-developers`_.
* Identifying trends and themes in the tickets. If there a lot of bug
reports about a particular part of Django, it may indicate we should
consider refactoring that part of the code. If a trend is emerging,
you should raise it for discussion (referencing the relevant tickets)
on `django-developers`_.
However, we do ask the following of all general community members working in
the ticket database:
@ -380,17 +388,19 @@ the ticket database:
make the final determination of the fate of a ticket, usually after
consultation with the community.
* Please **don't** promote tickets to "Ready for checkin" unless they are
*trivial* changes -- for example, spelling mistakes or broken links in
documentation.
* Please **don't** promote your own tickets to "Ready for checkin". You
may mark other people's tickets which you've reviewed as "Ready for
checkin", but you should get at minimum one other community member to
review a patch that you submit.
* Please **don't** reverse a decision that has been made by a core
developer. If you disagree with a discussion that has been made,
developer. If you disagree with a decision that has been made,
please post a message to `django-developers`_.
* Please be conservative in your actions. If you're unsure if you should
be making a change, don't make the change -- leave a comment with your
concerns on the ticket, or post a message to `django-developers`_.
* If you're unsure if you should be making a change, don't make the change
but instead leave a comment with your concerns on the ticket, or
post a message to `django-developers`_. It's okay to be unsure, but
your input is still valuable.
.. _contributing-translations: