We three newcomers were a little self-conscious at the beginning, trying to find our way in. Where can we find work for ourselves, where are we needed? Is there a list of tasks that we can look at? Do I even have the skills to solve one of the tasks?

The personal closeness and impartiality of the core developers very quickly lowered the inhibition threshold for asking supposedly stupid questions - and each of us found an issue on Github that we could try our hand at. In most cases, the right core contact person also emerged from the task. While Joachim and Weiye worked on Neos, I took a task from Flow, the framework on which Neos is based.

We soon had active pull requests on Github, in which we discussed our implementations with the core developers on site or elsewhere in the world. While working together, we got to know the process of a pull request and were hit on the fingers more often than we would have liked by the test mechanisms that check the code for style and run tests.

The feeling of elation when the tests were all green and the core developers involved in the review had also given their approval was all the better for it. Afterwards, pressing the button that unites our implementation with the project released us from the pull request, exhausted but proud and highly motivated. We didn't allow ourselves much of a break, however, and immediately moved on to the next task.

By the way...

Shortly before the Neos sprint, Joachim developed a Vagrant box based on the punkt.de-proServer, in which the Neos development project is stored when the box is started. This box served Joachim, Weiye and I as the basis for our developments at the sprint and is freely available to any motivated contributor.