Today officially marks 2 full years since my first commit to the WordPress open source project. ?
In the context of the WordPress project, a committer is a contributor with the ability to modify the main WordPress repository. Since 2004, roughly 90 people have been granted commit status for WordPress Core. If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend reading The Qualities of a great WordPress contributor by WordPress Lead Developer Andrew Nacin. Though this post was written in 2014 (and his blog has likely not been updated much since then), a lot of the responsibilities and duties of a committer still hold true.
By the numbers
Because looking at data is fun, I pulled some stats from the commit logs to see what I could learn. In two years, I have made:
- 790 total commits
- 437 commits to
trunk - 128 version bumps
- 82 version tags created.
- 1 version branch created
- 10 reverts
- 6 partial reverts
- 5 “unprops”
- 1 “unrops”
- 1 embarrassing keyboard mistake
Roughly grouped, here are commits by component (* designates a component I help maintain):
- Build/Test Tools: 82*
- Bundled Themes: 75
- General: 71*
- Docs: 43
- Editor/block editor: 38
- Help/About: 32
- Site Health: 27
- Administration: 24
- Privacy: 20
- Upgrade/Install: 17
- REST API: 13
- Coding standards: 16
- External Libraries: 16*
- Tests: 13
- Media: 12*
- Script Loader: 8
- Customize: 6
- Embeds: 6
- i18n/l10n: 6
- Menus: 6
- Networks and Sites: 5
- Themes: 5
- Widgets: 5
- Accessibility: 4
- Bootstrap/Load: 4
- Emoji: 4*
- XML-RPC: 3
- Date/Time: 2
- Feeds: 2
- Formatting: 2
- Meta: 2
- Plugins: 2
- Comments: 1
- Database: 1
- Login/Registration: 1
- Query: 1
While the numbers above are interesting, by far my favorite stat of all is 341: the number of unique contributors receiving “props” in commit messages that I have written.
Committers giving “props” to contributors on each changeset is how the project tracks who contributes to each version of WordPress. Props are compiled before a new version is released, and every contributor is credited on the About page.
This stat in particular makes me happy because I remember the excitement and satisfaction that I felt when I first contributed to WordPress (and still feel to this day). I hope that handing out props to contributors in my commit messages gives them that same feeling.
Being paid to work on open source software (OSS) full-time, and being a WordPress Core committer is a privilege that I don’t take lightly. Facilitating contributions and recognizing contributors for their hard work and passion to make 38% of the web a better place is truly humbling. Any commit I make is merely recognition of the passion within others.
So thank you all for your contributions! Here’s to many more years. ?
PS: If you have never received props for contributing to WordPress, I’d love to give you props in a future commit.
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