Things Real Dreamwidth Programmers Do

Wading into an open source project for the first time can be intimidating. There's a tendency to put established open source programmers up on a pedestal, especially when evaluating one's own abilities in comparison. (Hello, impostor syndrome!)

Real Open Source Programmers are the crème de la crème, the best of the best, the veritable titans of the programming world, right? They never make mistakes; they write flawless SQL queries in their sleep; they instantaneously comprehend any and all code they survey. Surely no mere mortal could ever hope to enter their exalted domain.

Reality, of course, is far, far removed from this caricature. Real Open Source Programmers are humans like the rest of us, with the same foibles, insecurities, and quirks common to all. Very few contributors have supernatural abilities, decades of programming experience, or an encyclopedic knowledge of computing arcana, and we are all far, far from perfect. =)

Thus, jeshyr came up with the idea of collecting an Epic List of Things Real Dreamwidth Programmers do. If you're a new or new-to-DW contributor, hopefully the list below will help disabuse you of any notion that you're somehow "not good enough" to contribute code -- you are. And if you program, design, sysadmin, or interact with computers in any way, feel free to add any anecdotes you might have -- either signing your name or not.

With that, we present the Epic List of Things Real Dreamwidth Programmers Do.