Environment set-up guides

[sminnee]

In order to ensure effective contribution, I think we need to provide some guides on how to set up IDEs / editors for work on SilverStripe core.

Off the top of my head, we should address the following areas:

• editorconfig
• js, php, and css linters
• custom silverstripe syntax packages

And based on https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/silverstripe-dev/bozY5hh9g4c, we should cover the following editors:

• PHPStorm
• Sublime Text
• Netbeans
• Atom

This information should probably be put alongside the other handy tips for contribution:

• checking out npm sources
• running js, php tests
• running final linter checks

Some relevant Atom packages

• https://atom.io/packages/editorconfig
• https://atom.io/packages/atom-silverstripe

[SpiritLevel]

Great minds think alike! I was actually thinking of first starting conversation threads on the dev google group to serve as collectors of SS relevant tips and tricks, one thread for each editor/IDE. People could chat in an organic way for a while and then, after enough information and ideas have been shared, the threads could be sluiced for nuggets to include in more formal documentation.

[sminnee]

Yeah, my initial goal is to minimise the number of pull requests that come through with issues that wouldn't have been generated in an appropriately configured IDE. However, this will also be of use to developers of silverstripe sites, as well as contributors to core.

.editorconfig and linting are biggies.

[SpiritLevel]

Smart...increases efficiency for core comitters handling PRs, increases efficiency for developers tooling up to use SS and to contribute, all increasing SS adoption generally.

[tractorcow]

Hm, this kind of information could get stale very quickly though; IDEs update, come, and go pretty rapidly these days.

It almost feels like the kind of thing that would best belong in a wiki. :D

[sminnee]

We don't have a wiki, and 3/4 of these items have been relevant for longer than many of our APIs. ;-)

[SpiritLevel]

IM(very)HO, having stale documentation around, providing at least an outline of what to do, is better than having nothing at all :) There seemed to be quite a bit of interest on the dev group in sharing knowledge about IDEs so perhaps the community would be active in keeping at least this part of the information up to date. For a lot of the other information, SS could provide general outlines and include in them links to sites that assume the responsibility of keeping more detailed explanations current....

[GuySartorelli]

I don't know how relevant this still is... I don't think education about IDEs is really our responsibility, and I haven't seen any particular need for this sort of documentation... I'm going to close this now but if someone strongly disagrees with me I'd be happy to continue the conversation and would be happy to reopen the issue if it turns out my assumption is wrong.

[dhensby]

This is really just a roundabout way of talking about contribution guides.

Hopefully most of these issues can be solved with tooling rather than IDE setup...

[GuySartorelli]

What sort of tooling do you have in mind?

[dhensby]

What sort of tooling do you have in mind?

• editorconfig -js, php, and css linters
• custom silverstripe syntax packages

This can be covered by linting tools like phpcs. The tooling to fix code syntax would be phpcbf.

The other items on the list are look like contributing guidance around how to checkout / modify / build code (so npm build, etc).

[GuySartorelli]

Sweet, that makes sense. I'll reopen with that context in mind.