Work

This one's all Drupal folks, cause that's pretty much all I've done for the last two and a half weeks. This is what happened when I asked the question, "Is there some reason we don't just fix it all?" I did not know then what I was getting myself into...

A small inconsistency

It all started in late summer, when I was testing some Drupal 7 core patches for moving fields and image handling into core, and at some point clicked my way into the Help pages. There was a blatant typo on the Node module help, and then a change in language that needed to be made, so on August 1st, 2009 I created an issue for it.

Then someone posted a patch to update the text. And Emma Jane Hogbin posted another...and then she and I started talking on IRC about how it would be much better to have some more clear formatting that could be applied across the board, fans of consistency that we are.  And we went back and forth for a while making little improvements. Thanks to having learned how to apply and create patches several months back, I had just enough experience to make changes and roll new patches.

The patch was marked RTBC (reviewed and tested by the community). Yay! But wait... then Angie, who is the Drupal 7 core maintainer saw the issue (as she is the one who does final reviews of issues marked RTBC before they are committed to the core codebase). And she was like WHOA, this is a major change! A good change, but a major one, which would need to be applied across the board to all the core modules (and eventually all the contributed modules). She also made us aware that if we wanted to make such an overarching change that we would need to be able to prove a higher level of discussion and consensus on the issue and then complete the change in time for the string freeze deadline.

A much bigger task at hand

Various documentation team members went back and for for a while about whether the new standard would be supported, and kept updating the patch getting closer and closer to a format we were happy with. By now it was the end of October, and the patch was finally set back to RTBC. This is when it popped back up on Angie's radar, who was like (paraphrasing)... "So, you guys haven't really addressed the question of whether you are going to make a massive across the board change here." Oh, right, that.

A new patch was created that reverted the format updates, and just updated the text to match Drupal 7 functionality. There was nothing wrong with this patch, and it could have just been applied and nothing else said about it.

But I didn't feel right about it... So I thought to myself, is there an actual reason that we are not making this massive change? It's not exactly challenging, it's just a lot of grunt work. And at the end of it, we would have some much more helpful and readable help references for the core modules in Drupal 7 rather than the difficult to read and horribly out of date information that was currently on the help pages.

Accepting the challenge

I posted back on the issue and asked this very question, and said that I thought it was really important to improve the help. Jennifer Hodgdon, who was another initial supporter, started a thread on the Documentation team mailing list, and it turned out that people agreed on one thing: the help text sucked and we ought to fix it. Happy birthday to me, on November 13th, 18 days before the Drupal 7 string freeze deadline, we made the final decision to overhaul the help pages, and Jennifer posted the template for the change.

Since Jennifer is a more experienced member of the Documentation team, as well as a much more advanced programmer than me, she got us off on the right foot and lead the charge for the first half, with the agreement that when she was going to be away for most of the homestretch I would take over and steer the ship. We'd been working well together and I felt like I was competent enough (and had enough other support available) to take on this responsibility.

The standard was signed off on, and on November 20th (ten days to the deadline), a list of modules was posted so people could start signing up for which updates they would take on. And then the real work began. And oh my...was there a lot of it.

Nose to the grindstone

I had no idea starting this out how much there really was to do. I was only thinking about the template change. But there was also a major need to update the content of the text, and those changes had to be reviewed and tweaked, and reviewed and tweaked some more. And then some more... I learned more about Drupal, the contribution workflow, and writing docs in PHP in that week and a half, than probably in the previous six months. Slowly but surely, myself and the others who were helping out got into a groove, and started cranking out some great updated help text patches. I got a couple of hours of "fun hour" at work to work away at this, but otherwise it was all afterhours; it basically devoured my free-time for almost two weeks.

Maybe it was the timing with American Thanksgiving, or having Jennifer away (thank goodness she was back for about a day and a half before the deadline!), but we definitely lost some momentum after the first five or six days. Feeling a certain level of responsibility, I basically crammed like a crazyperson most evenings and all through the final weekend, reviewing and updating patches. Thankfully a couple other dedicated people stuck with it, tag teaming on patches and reviews. Yes, I totally burnt myself out, but with the help of those great people who stuck it out, we miraculously got all of the patches for the 39 help texts done (44 if you count the Field submodules), updated to Drupal 7 content-wise, reviewed until within an inch of their lives, and marked RTBC (many of them already committed) by the December 1st, 2009 deadline.

The result?

Here is an example of the old help text for the node module:

And here is the updated version:

It might not look like much, but particularly for new site admins, and even more so with some of the more complicated modules, this is going to provide a truly useful resource (rather than a slightly confusing bunch of text that mainly just forces people to click through to the handbook). It was one of those highly neglected and unloved parts of Drupal, and it makes me extremely happy that is got a little much-needed love. On top of that, the first one of my help patches that was committed was my FIRST CORE PATCH! In Drupal-land, this is a momentous event, and I was thrilled to see that two of the others who were helping out both had their first core patches shortly after me while working on this.

(For anyone interested, the help doc standard is here, the main thread for the issue is here and there are several more branched off of it, all tagged with d7help.)

What I learned

This can be summed up in three points.

1. How much work really goes into Drupal. This was the most time I'd ever spent actually working on Drupal (core), not online documentation, not event organizing. I had done some patch reviews before, but this was the most concentrated amount of time spent in the issue queue, and on IRC, working away alongside all of the developers who have also been cramming for this deadline. Countless hours and energy by people around the world goes into making this an amazing open-source web platform. It's pretty mind-blowing to see how it all comes together.
2. Technical skills. I can now roll patches in my sleep. The whole process of tracking issues, downloading and applying patches, reviewing and making changes, and posting updates is something I now am completely comfortable with. I also learned some basic PHP coding, and also some of the associated coding standards that the Drupal development community uses. Prior to this, I could at best cut and past PHP into the right place. Now I am beginning to cross the line from memorizing to actually understanding what I am looking at. That is a huge accomplishment for someone who three short years ago was finishing off a Masters in Health Geography, and looking at her first CSS code.
3. A few determined people can make a big change. The crazy part of this was that despite having to gather a lot of feedback and get consensus on the change, it was really just a handful of dedicated people who made this come to fruition. Several people helped out with reviews, but I have to give extra-special props to the people who did the bulk of the work with me: Jennifer Hodgdon (aka. jhodgdon) from Poplarware, Lisa Rex (aka. lisarex) who is a Freelancer specializing in usability, and Boris Doesborg (aka. batigolix) who from what I could gather works at Erasmus Hogeschool in Brussels. Last but not least Drupal 7 core maintainer, Angie Byron (aka. webchick) from Lullabot, who by golly is one of the most patient and dedicated people I know. Angie fielded a ton of questions about module functionality and what should or shouldn't be included, as well as doing a ton of final reviews and giving great, useful feedback to everyone who was working on this. We never would have made it without her help, and it was great fun some of those late nights on IRC.

All in all, a great learning experience, a great result, and my goodness am I glad it's done (at least until issues start turning up for contrib modules)!

And.... the busiest of months has come to an end. Exhales.

October was a great if not overbooked month. Between BarCamp Vancouver, the Drupal 7 Conrib Sprint, and the big PNW Drupal Summit in Seattle last weekend, I had only one weekend off the entire month (on which there was also Drupal Camp Portland, but I decided that would be pushing it).  I made up for the past month in a big way this weekend, going out to socialize only once (last night for Halloween), sleeping in till 10am both mornings, doing laundry, cleaning my bathroom, cooking, reading, chatting with my folks on the phone, and generally being a homebody.

The PNW Drupal Summit in Seattle last weekend was something I'd been looking forward to for quite a while. My coworker Shawn and I drove down a day early, and Shiraz (another one of our coworkers who lives on the island) took the ferry over and met us that night. We managed to do a little exploring of the Pioneer Square area Friday, where I bought a bunch of cool books, and drove through Capitol Hill and up the waterfront before tiring out and going back to the hotel for naps. Everyone else arrived by bus or train Friday night; we had quite the crew amassed over the weekend, with 5 people from AB, 2 others who have been doing contract work with us, and then my friend Katherine who works at another company and has been a conference roomie before.

It was great catching up with the Seattle crew, as well as lots of people who I'd met at previous Camps and Cons, and also getting to know some new people. It's such a great group, I never tire of hanging out with everyone from the PNW plus a few others who came in from Idaho, and even Montana.  I learned a few new things including, a new (to me) tool for managing content deployment using Deploy module [slides/vid here], and my Agile project management/development BOF was actually one of the highlights of the weekend for me. It was well attended, and there were some really great conversations and sharing of experiences from other PM's and devs who have been (or want to start) using Agile methods. I think that the session may have been videotaped, and am crossing my fingers that footage will surface at some point! Thanks again a million to the great Drupallers in Seattle for all their hard work making that come together.

To abruptly change topics, I got this crazy white pumpkin to carve last night (the photo Rachael took really shows how white it was); I thought it was some strange tough inedible gourd, but it really was this fantastic pumpkin. Probably some kind of heirloom variety, as it had not had all the amazing squash-iness bred out of it. Very thick and meaty, huge seeds, and so orange inside that my hands were completely stained after I was done.  Rachael and Boris used some of it for soup, so I am hoping that it was as tasty as it was entertaining (I hate to waste them, even if they are just grown to be decorative veggies).  It was a quiet Halloween, but I think that's ok. I am up for some quiet times.

ps. For the record, I still think daylight savings is bunk. Saskatchewan has it right (disclaimer: I am biased).

pps. People I know are raising money for cancer research, and you should donate!

• Jo Biggar (my friend's brother) is going to cut off his amazing dreadlocks, which he's been growing for nearly a decade to reach his goal of raising $10,000 - he's over 2/3 to his goal, so help him out!
• Also today marks the first day of Movember (ie. the month where boys grow 'staches to raise money for prostate cancer), and my coworker Shawn is participating - you can pledge on his mo growing here (if the link doesn't work, go to http://ca.movember.com/ and search for "Shawn Price").

This blog post comes to you in two parts: 1) Drupal 2) Everything else

Drupal7 Codesprint

This weekend was the Drupal7 Contrib Upgrade Sprint that Károly Négyesi (aka chx) organized at the NowPublic offices. I spent a good part of yesterday there, helped out with coaching the one beginner who turned up to learn some of the tools for helping out in the community.  Otherwise, after a bit of a rough start, the devs all hunkered down and have been making some Drupal magic, upgrading super important things like Views, Panels, database stuff, and various other bits and pieces of modules and themes.

A good number of people came in from out of town and they've all been working  their butts off.  Sam Boyer came in from Chicago and was working on panels, Jakob Perry was up from Bellingham (I think?) and was working with some others to get Coder module functional for D7. David Strauss was in from Austin, TX, and I think he was working on some DBTNG stuff (?), and Josh Brauer came up from Idaho and Amye Scavarda (who I'd met at the Project Management BOF in DC) was in from Portland as well... I lost track what everyone was doing (and ended up staying home today thanks to a tummyache) but trust me you want to thank your lucky starts there are all these amazing dedicated people around.

Highfives to all the Vancouverites who came out and helped and showed their support! Rick, Dale, Katherine, Francis, Hubert, Richard, Catherine, and a brave "newb" (more new to the community than new to development) Chris.  And also to the others who joined remotely, Damien Tournoud, Dmitri G., Larry Garfield, Daniel Wehne, and Mike Prasuhn spent the better part of their weekends helping out from their respective homes.  I'm sure others stopped in that I missed, but I just feel like it's the least I can do to say a collective thanks to everyone who spends so much of their time and energy keeping this ship afloat.  Open source communities are a pretty amazing thing when you think about it, it just gives me the warm fuzzies.

Everything Else

Had a great Thanksgiving dinner last weekend, with a few friends and a lot of strangers out in East Van.  Makes me happy knowing the kinds of people in my life are the kind where a mish-mash of their friends can turn up at a dinner party, many who know only one or two people there, and chit chat all evening and have a great time. There were several people who worked in urban planning, resource management, non-profits, tech, and social media, so there was a lot of really passionate, interesting conversations.

I've been on holiday this past week, recharging in order to get through the end of the month, October has been crazy packed full of tech events... the final one being the Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit which is in Seattle at the end of the month.  I'm excited and trying to keep my energy up so I don't totally burn out before getting through it!  One of my coworkers gave me some advice recently about prioritizing and energy levels, suggesting that maybe I ought to be a little more selfish (in a taking care of my self way, not a being a jerk way) about my priorities and not overdo it when it comes to extracurricular (ie. non-work) commitments.

That is a really hard thing for me to accept, there is so much that I want to do all of the time, and the reality is that I never have enough energy, and that is quite likely not going to change.  I realize maybe I haven't quite struck the optimal balance yet, but I can say with relative certainty that my life is always going to involve pushing myself, since I'm not willing to give up doing the things that keep me happy and keep me feeling motivated. It's more of refining exactly how much I can and should push myself so that I still get to do stuff that I want to, but don't feel totally drained all the time.  It sounds easy enough, but as anyone who deals with ongoing health challenges knows, it's not just that simple.

 I've no idea what I am talking about.  I'm trapped in this body and can't get out.
- Radiohead "Bodysnatchers"

I'd love to hear how you all balance your personal/health needs with your work and extracurricular passions if you feel like giving a little feedback.

A bunch of things have inspired me and lifted my spirit this past week, so I wanted to share:

An awesome A Softer World ... this one's pretty great too (remember to read the hover text!)

An awesome photo/paste-up by Basco5 (don't look if you're scared of barfing)

An awesome video by Oren Lavie (just watch it, it's amazing)

Ridiculously awesome beatboxing and flute-beatboxing (c/o @adrian_ng)

An awesome photo diptych by Rachael (read the poem she paired with it on her blog for extra awesome)

More random goodness:

1. Seeing The Weakerthans and The Constantines at the Commodore with Greg
2. The rain actually smelling like rain
3. Make It craft fair at the Roundhouse and free comic book day at Elfsar in Yaletown with Rachael and Boris
4. Second (and third?) chances
5. Work being awesome and working with rad people
6. So Delicious coconut ice cream (but why can't I find the yogurt in Canada???)
7. Getting my sewing machine un-jammed
8. Being reminded my friends love me unconditionally
9. Patting the awesome dog at my massage therapist's
10. Being okay at the end of the day

Scorpio Horoscope for week of April 2, 2009 c/o Freewill Astrology

The three tasks I think you should work on in the coming week are among the hardest any human being can attempt. Luckily, you now have an unusually strong aptitude for them, and are likely to receive unexpected assistance if you're brave enough to plunge ahead. Here they are. 1. Interrupt and overthrow negative trains of thought right in the middle of their flow through your brain. 2. Negotiate partial solutions to complex problems. In other words, do the half-right thing when it's impossible to do the totally right thing. 3. Understand that in order to graduate from a certain batch of weird karma that has persisted, you must completely accept the situation as it is, acknowledge your role in precipitating and prolonging it, and feel gratitude for all that it has taught you.

Freakishly accurate?  Don't mind if I do.

This applies so well to the three main aspects of my life that are perplexing me and/or requiring a lot of energy right now: health, work, and relationships/friendships.  I could use a little blind hope, so okay horoscope, I'll take your challenge!

Number 1  Work in progress (ongoing).  Especially when it comes to interacting with people, especially new people, need to keep working on not assuming the worst.

Number 2 is extremely exciting for me, as being a bit of a perfectionist and hard on myself, I could totally handle some half/partial solutions when I don't feel like I know how to do the whole, or haven't been able to.  This particularly relates to work, which as much as I love it, has been tiring because of having this recurring bronchitis on top of my usual stuff.  But I know I'm always pushing myself to do everything at my regular level just because I hold myself to those standards, when really perhaps I should be focusing on doing what needs to be done and then taking more care of myself.

Number 3 is interesting, because I feel like I really have been having some "weird karma" affect me the past while, and it's been lingering, and I haven't been able to completely shake it.  But it's true, I haven't accepted all the various situations.  I'm a problem solver, and I tend to always believe there is some way to resolve things.  But maybe that's the difficult lesson that I'm meant to learn: that you can't win 'em all, so you just have to embrace the crap with the good (and what ever role you had in causing it), and really accept it and then learn from it.   So alright, crap, I give in.  I admit defeat, and I own up to the myriad ways I am responsible for what's been going on.

I'm going to be wholehearted (as per previous post) about surrendering myself to the fact that I still do think negatively about myself a lot, that I don't have to do everything 100% right all the time, and that I'm really not healthy right now and that I can't do everything all the time, and by continuing to push myself, I'm probably not helping myself get better any faster.

Whatever I have to do to feel better (physically and mentally), that's what I'm going to do, cause gosh darnit, I could really stand for my life to be a little more normal (read: fun and active) again sooner than later.

As Travis detailed, February has indeed been a cruel month for many - it delivered me one final (I hope) blow yesterday (not for the squeamish: the damage - yes I know I'm being a wuss about it, but it still hurts like a mofo a day later!), but in a few hours it'll officially be done and gone.  That's not to say there weren't any high points, it was a bit of a roller coaster ride.  In any case, now that it's done, it feels as if it flew by and I'm already starting to carefully block the low points out of my memory. ;-)

This month certainly put me in a place of probably the highest responsibility I've been in career wise, and it was challenging, without a doubt.  This is horrible to admit, but a couple weeks into January, I had myself convinced in the matter of a few short weeks would be an utter failure (self confidence, it's a work in progress), the world would blow up, and I'd be laying in a pile of rubble.  By the time February arrived, I had resigned myself that whatever would be would be, and decided just to go with the flow...as much as a slightly control-freakish, anxiety battling, over-planner can go with the flow, that is.

I decided (rightly or not) that the only way I was going to survive was to ruthlessly prioritize what I spent my time doing.  This did allow for me to get done what needed to be done, but I sacrificed a lot of friend time, and looking back I think it would have done me well to maintain a bit more of that life balance in the mix.  I worked from home on the days I felt really run down, but spent as much time at the office as I could, as I felt it was important to keep in the loop and keep things running smoothly.

Last week was by far the most intense, and the return of my now good friend bronchitis nearly sent me over the edge.  But I stuck with my plan to just work as hard as I could, and most of all, try not to freak out, and miracle of miracles, the world did not come to an end.  In fact, although I did get incredibly frustrated a couple times, I never did really 'lose it' which I think is not an insignificant accomplishment.  Finally finding antibiotics that work well and don't make me really ill has helped a lot as well.

I think the biggest highlight was getting to know the developers I work with better.  I worked at the office a LOT more than usual, and definitely feel like we're more of a cohesive team.  It was a lot of fun, and I truly appreciate how great they are to work with, and also how supportive they all were.  All things said and done, I feel very...competent.  I wasn't really setting out to prove much to myself other than that I would survive, but I feel like I did a lot more than that.  I feel like I really surpassed what I believed I was capable of, and that is truly valuable.

And now, my reward is upon me: a week (mostly) off to nerd out to my heart's content (more to come)!

On a totally unrelated note, have you been to the new, and newly renovated Nuba?  It's quite lovely.