PostgreSQL is a great community. They are open-minded, friendly, agreeable and so on. You feel like helping them. The problem is you are shy and you look at community people as gods. On top of that you don't want to mess up with their work or bother them with obvious and silly (to them) questions! This conference talk is based on my own true story. I will tell you about how I submitted my very first patch to the community. After some background presentation about how the community works, I will try to answer the following questions: What can I do to help (and you'll see that even without coding you can do a lot!)? What's a contribution? What's a patch? How can I create one? And I hope that sooner or later you'll come and join the community and you'll feel so proud of yourselves!

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@l_avrot
DE-MYSTIFYING
CONTRIBUTING TO
POSTGRESQL
PGDAY PARIS
2018-03-15
Lætitia AVROT
Loxodata

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@l_avrot
WHO
Lætitia Avrot
PostgreSQL consultant and teacher
DBA PostgreSQL for more than 10 years
(and also Oracle and SQL Server)
@l_avrot

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LOXODATA
Company built on 3 essential pillars
PostgreSQL DevOps Cloud

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WHAT
Contributing to PostgreSQL
The PostgreSQL community
The PostgreSQL projects and tools
The story of my patch
How you can help

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THE COMMUNITY

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@l_avrot

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@l_avrot
The core team
5 members
Independant
Act as project managers

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Committers
More or less 15 members
Have git push permissions
Responsible for code quality

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Developpers
C code
Need to comply with
Need to comment (a lot)
style guide

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Reviewers
No need to be a dev
But technical background needed
If you don't understand it, others won't

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Translators
No need to be a dev
Software messages
Documentation
Others (press releases...)

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Advocacy
Promote PostgreSQL use
Share informations about PostgreSQL
Regional press contacts

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Associations
Small to large groups of users
National or international

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@l_avrot

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Local User Groups and Meetups
User gathering
Sharing thoughts, use cases, issues...

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PROJECTS

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@l_avrot

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@l_avrot

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The road map
1 major release per year
1 minor release per quarter (minimum)

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Commitfests
1 month long
When most patches are commited
Needs a commitFest Manager

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commitfest.postgresql.org

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TOOLS

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Websites

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Websites
www.postgresql.org
wiki.postgresql.org
www.postgresql.org/docs
planet.postgresql.org

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Mailing-lists
Bug submission (use the )
pgsql-novice for newcommers
Special lists for associations and local groups
pgsql-hackers (be carefull, these guys are SO chatty)
form

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Security issues :
security@postgresql.org

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IRC
Chanel #postgresql on irc.freenode.net
Live chat with other PostgreSQL users
Don't ask to ask, just ask!

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irc.freenode.net

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Twitter
Stay in touch with other PostgreSQL users
Brand new community account : @postgresql

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Other ways to stay in touch
Postgres
Postgres
Forums (as )
Slack
hangout
stackexchange

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Git
if you don't know git, don't be afraid
git clone
git pull (--rebase)
git diff
Use the PostgreSQL Wiki page

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MY FIRST PATCH

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What's a patch?
Source : Wikipedia
A patch is a piece of software designed to update a
computer program or its supporting data, to x or
improve it.

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My story
Missing section in ALTER TABLE documentation
Discussion with peers
Bug reporting
Patch creation with guru mentors
Patch submission

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Creating the patch
PostgreSQL git clone
Copy/Paste missing section from CREATE TABLE to ALTER TABLE
Re-building documentation from source code
Building from source code
Building documentation from source code

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git diff
With context
Use the wiki pageCreating clean patches
Format your git diff output

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But sometimes, even the best men don't follow instructions...

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git diff without context to the left,
git diff with context to the right

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My submission
Use the Wiki pageSubmitting a patch

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The result

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Patch corrected

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Commit fest

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Oh no!

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And another section was missing!

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It's ready!

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And it's committed!

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... Now I can die without regret!

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What next ?
Correcting some spelling errors in french translation
Studying the code
Observing revewing in January Commit fest
Proposed conf talks (and got accepted each time for now)

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HOW YOU CAN HELP

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Simple contributor
use PostgreSQL
share your experience
answer other users' questions

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Great Contributor
Create/help organizing user group/Meetup
Create/help organizing event
Invest time/money in PostgreSQL Associations

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Super Contributor
Report bugs
Create patches
Review patches

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CONCLUSION

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It's all about you
You're already contributing
So, next step ?

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Please join us!

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QUESTIONS ?
The end
We're hiring!
recrutement@loxodata.com
Thanks to Dimitri, Greg, Vik, Robert and Alvaro for your patience and time
Thanks to Frits Ahlefeldt, Freepik, Grzm, Alvaro Herrera, Pixabay and
Xkcd.com for illustrations and photos