43 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
43 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Contrib-first doesn't mean building for every use case
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date: 2025-03-10
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permalink: daily/2025/03/10/contrib-first
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tags:
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- software-development
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- drupal
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- open-source
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cta: ~
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snippet: |
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Contrib-first development doesn't mean building for every use case upfront.
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---
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Most Drupal projects include writing custom code to add functionality required for that project or that doesn't yet exist.
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Some of this may be identified as code that could be contributed back to the Drupal community and uploaded to Drupal.org as reusable code for others to use.
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Usually, this involves "cleaning up" the code to make it ready to be open sourced - ensuring it complies with coding standards, follows best practices and doesn't contain any sensitive or project-specific data.
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Unfortunately, this doesn't always happen as the next project or task is waiting to be started, and the code is never contributed.
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I like to do contrib-first or contrib-driven development, where the code is open sourced upfront, developed in the open and used on the project as I'm developing it.
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A common argument to this approach is that it takes too much time.
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I assume that's because people think I need to cover every use case and situation in the module because I'm open sourcing it.
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That's not true.
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When I wrote modules like [System User][0], [Null User][1] and [Private Message Queue][2], I wrote the same code I'd have written if I was going to contribute it later - but I didn't need to clean it up afterwards.
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I didn't need to ensure it didn't contain anything I'd need to remove.
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It wasn't a big task to open source them as they were already open sourced.
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If other people want to use the module and need additional features, they could open an issue, submit a patch or create their own patches.
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Just because code has been open sourced doesn't mean it needs to do everything for everyone.
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[0]: https://www.drupal.org/project/system_user
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[1]: https://www.drupal.org/project/null_user
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[2]: https://www.drupal.org/project/private_message_queue
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