Pull Request Update
As you may know, I am the lead developer on a group of sites run by JewishLanguages.org. The site, not of my own choosing, runs on CakePHP 4. A few years ago we had the choice to switch since it was on an old version of CakePHP, but I figured that since I was already familiar with the framework it would be best to stick with it instead of building everything anew in a new framework. Perhaps we will change the framework when CakePHP 4 reaches the end of its lifetime we will swtich to something else, but that is for another time.
Anyway, my time with CakePHP has gotten me very familiar with its documentation, and as the sites I work on grow in complexity (it now supports three languages, with more planned in the future) so does the number of things I need to learn how to do in the framework (please hold your “I hate PHP” comments, there isn’t anyhting I can do about it here, or in my specific situation). Anyway, after Googling how to do something and mashing together a few solutions from StackOverflow, I decided I was going to take a crack at improving the documentation for this one piece I was unable to figure out from the documentation alone.
So I went to Github, found the part of the docs I though could use some clarification, and then added the explanation as well as an example suing the example they use throughout the documentation and did a pull request. I had no idea what to expect next, but what followed utterly impressed me. A group of individuals who I had never met and who had no knowledge of my skills, actualyl took seriously my contribution. There was some back and forth for a day or two, but then it mostly went quiet. I went and checked on it once a week or so, but nothing. I was unsure of the etiqutte, so I just left it. Today, though, I see that there was a tag for another person who seems to work on the documentation to make his call. And from his response a little while ago, it seems like my change will go in! There is a bit left to go, but I am very excited and I have a small amount of renewed hope in humanity, no matter how it turns out when it is all over. Stay tuned!