Add contributing-specific file

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Hunter Stevens 2015-10-23 14:25:42 -04:00
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CONTRIBUTING.markdown Normal file
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# Contributing
All contributions are welcome, from the tiniest typo to a brand new article. Translations
in all languages are welcome (or, for that matter, original articles in any language).
Send a pull request or open an issue any time of day or night.
**Please prepend the tag `[language/lang-code]` to your issues and pull requests.** For example,
`[python/en]` for English Python. This will help everyone pick out things they care about.
We're happy for any contribution in any form, but if you're making more than one major change
(i.e. translations for two different languages) it would be super cool of you to make a
separate pull request for each one so that someone can review them more effectively and/or
individually.
## Style Guidelines
- **Keep lines of under 80 chars**
+ Try to keep **line length in code blocks to 80 characters or fewer**.
+ Otherwise, the text will overflow and look odd.
- **Prefer example to exposition**
+ Try to use as few words as possible.
+ Code examples are preferred over exposition in all cases.
- **Eschew surplusage**
+ We welcome newcomers, but the target audience for this site is programmers with some experience.
+ Try to avoid explaining basic concepts except for those specific to the language in question.
+ Keep articles succinct and scannable. We all know how to use Google here.
- **Use UTF-8**
+ For translations (or EN articles with non-ASCII characters) please make sure your file is UTF-8 encoded.
+ Try to leave out the byte-order-mark at the start of the file. (`:set nobomb` in Vim)
## Header configuration
The actual site uses Middleman to generate HTML files from these Markdown ones. Middleman, or at least
the custom scripts underpinning the site, requires key information to be defined in the header.
The following fields are necessary for English articles about programming languages:
- **language** - The *programming language* in question
- **contributors** - A list of [author, URL] arrays to provide credit
Other fields:
- **filename** - The filename for this article's code. It will be fetched, mashed together, and made downloadable.
+ For non-English articles, *filename* should have a language-specific suffix.
- **lang** - For translations, the human language this article is in. For categorization, mostly.
Here's an example header for an Esperanto translation of Ruby:
```yaml
---
language: ruby
filename: learnruby-epo.ruby
contributors:
- ["Doktor Esperanto", "http://example.com/"]
- ["Someone else", "http://someoneelseswebsite.com/"]
lang: ep-ep
---
```

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# [Learn X in Y minutes](http://learnxinyminutes.com)
# [Learn X in Y minutes][1]
Whirlwind tours of (several, hopefully many someday) popular and
ought-to-be-more-popular programming languages, presented as valid,
@ -18,71 +18,27 @@ All contributions are welcome, from the tiniest typo to a brand new article. Tra
in all languages are welcome (or, for that matter, original articles in any language).
Send a pull request or open an issue any time of day or night.
**Please tag your issues and pull requests with [language/lang-code] at the beginning**
**(e.g. [python/en] for English Python).** This will help everyone pick out things they
care about.
**Please prepend the tag `[language/lang-code]` to your issues and pull requests.** For example,
`[python/en]` for English Python. This will help everyone pick out things they care about.
We're happy for any contribution in any form, but if you're making more than one major change
(i.e. translations for two different languages) it would be super cool of you to make a
separate pull request for each one so that someone can review them more effectively and/or
individually.
### Style Guidelines
* **Keep lines under 80 chars**
* **Prefer example to exposition**
* **Eschew surplusage**
* **Use UTF-8**
Long version:
* Try to keep **line length in code blocks to 80 characters or fewer**, or they'll overflow
and look odd.
* Try to use as few words as possible. Code examples are preferred over exposition in all cases.
* We welcome newcomers, but the target audience for this site is programmers with some experience.
So, try to avoid explaining basic concepts except for those specific to the language in question,
to keep articles succinct and scannable. We all know how to use Google here.
* For translations (or English articles with non-ASCII characters), please make sure your file is
UTF-8 encoded, and try to leave out the byte-order-mark at the start of the file. (`:set nobomb` in Vim)
### Header configuration
The actual site uses Middleman to generate HTML files from these Markdown ones. Middleman, or at least
the custom scripts underpinning the site, required that some key information be defined in the header.
The following fields are necessary for English articles about programming languages:
* **language** The *programming language* in question
* **contributors** A list of [author, URL] lists to credit
Other fields:
* **filename**: The filename for this article's code. It will be fetched, mashed together, and made downloadable.
For non-English articles, *filename* should have a language-specific suffix.
* **lang**: For translations, the human language this article is in. For categorization, mostly.
Here's an example header for an Esperanto translation of Ruby:
```yaml
---
language: ruby
filename: learnruby-epo.ruby
contributors:
- ["Doktor Esperanto", "http://example.com/"]
- ["Someone else", "http://someoneelseswebsite.com/"]
lang: ep-ep
---
```
For a detailed style guide, please review the full [CONTRIBUTING][2] guidelines.
## License
Contributors retain copyright to their work, and can request removal at any time.
By uploading a doc here, you agree to publish your work under the default
[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US)
[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported][3]
licensing included on each doc page.
Anything not covered by the above -- basically, this README -- you can use
as you wish, I guess.
[1]: http://learnxinyminutes.com
[2]: https://github.com/adambard/learnxinyminutes-docs/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.markdown
[3]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US