How Shia LaBeouf got me to submit my first patch to WordPress Core

An awesome thing happened recently- Shia LaBeouf filmed a motivational speech in front of a green screen. People ran with it, and, if you go looking, you’ll likely find some pretty hilarious adaptations.

Somewhere between seeing Shia show up at someone’s door and watching him help Luke use the force, I realized that this wasn’t just some hilarious meme. Or, at the very least, it didn’t HAVE to be. Somewhere between the laughs I actually felt inspired. “Just do it.” It can’t be that simple, can it?

It can!

Just do it!

I love WordPress. It is my favorite CMS and I feel like I can build anything with it. Naturally, I’ve always wanted to give back to this amazing open source platform. I bet if you were to ask nearly any WordPress developer, they will tell you that they have thought about / want to submit patches to core. It feels great to be able to give back to a platform and community I take so much from every day. Who wouldn’t want to feel that way?

I have ALWAYS been interested in submitting to core. It’s always been something that I wanted to do, but never found the time for. Or, when I would actually get the time and drive to try, I would sift through the never ending pile of open tickets in trac and never find something I felt I could do. On the off chance that I actually found a ticket I could help with, it seemed to always have a patch already.

After listening to Shia scream at me to “just do it” one too many times, I decided to listen. So, last night I loaded up WordPress Core Trac and told myself I wasn’t going to sleep until I submitted a patch. A few hours later, I did just that.

Not only was I able to find & submit a patch for an existing ticket, I was also able to contribute some good information to a second one (and hopefully submit a patch there once the right approach is decided upon)!

I realize that my submitted patch might not end up getting committed, but I’m fine with that. The whole fog around submitting patches has now been lifted for me, and I can’t wait to get back in there and keep giving back to this amazing open source project.

Thanks Shia- without you, I may never have pulled the trigger!