Stanko Metodiev’s First-time Experience Contributing Patches to WordPress Core

Stanko Metodiev, project manager for Devrix, shares his experience contributing a patch to WordPress core for the first time. While browsing Trac, Metodiev discovered a bug report with the menu customizer.

Although a patch was already attached to the ticket, it didn’t work, “The change didn’t fix the issue for me, so I submitted a new patch to adjust the size by a few more pixels,” Metodiev said.

The change was merged into core by WordPress lead developer, Helen Hou-Sandí.

Merged into Core
Merged into Core

It’s a small change but as I learned from my experience contributing to core, every merged patch is important no matter how small it is. Metodiev offers the following advice to new contributors, “Don’t be scared and don’t be shy. The core team is hospitable, especially for first timers and they will give guidance and advice if needed, so feel free to contribute patches!”

Since his experience with WordPress 4.3, Metodiev continues to contribute to core and has seven merged patches in WordPress 4.4. If you’re thinking about contributing patches to core but don’t know where to start, I highly encourage you to read the Core Contributor Handbook. In it you’ll find best practices, testing techniques, and how to submit patches to Trac.

3

3 responses to “Stanko Metodiev’s First-time Experience Contributing Patches to WordPress Core”

  1. Thanks, Jeff!

    Yes, I think it’s really important people to see that contributing back is not that hard. Yes, you need to know a few things, but you can always ask for help if you have a question and if the handbook is not enough :)

    • I enjoyed the mentor approach. I asked a core developer to help me out and they helped to create a patch and apply it to core. Again, congrats on your first and it looks like many more merged patches to come :)

  2. Contribution is indeed not as hard. I had the chance to be at the Contributors day at WordCamp Sofia 2015. The team there was very helpful.
    It just requires consistency, which is the hard part.

Newsletter

Subscribe Via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

%d bloggers like this: