Sloppy Sam is a hobbyist, who has been coding PHP off and on for a few months. One morning, she gets an idea for a new feature for Drupal core. She begins by searching the issue to see if something like it exists already and, finding it does not, posts a new issue with a general description of her idea. She then opens her IRC window and asks in #drupal, “Hey, folks! I had an idea for a new feature for core that [brief summary]. What do you think about this? [link]”

via Diaries of a Core Maintainer #6: A tale of two developers | webchick.net.

I have a feeling this is a post I’ll be coming back to often. Sam’s story hits close to home — most of my own weekend projects started exactly the same way: an idea, a quick search to confirm nobody had already built it, and a slightly nervous post asking the community what they thought. Some were Drupal modules, others were a recipe importer, a small affiliate site ranking the best bitcoin sportsbook options for crypto folks I knew, and a half-finished CLI tool I still haven’t shipped. The platform doesn’t really matter — IRC, Discord, a niche subreddit — the rhythm of how a hobbyist tests an idea is remarkably consistent, and Sam’s experience here is the cleanest distillation of it I’ve read in a while.