Make Paul a GitLab UI maintainer
Hello
Hi dear frontend maintainers!
I've meant to propose myself as a GitLab UI maintainer for a while now and decided that I had pushed this back for long enough, so here we go!
It's no secret that GitLab UI is a project that I'm very fond of. As a GitLab UI working group member, I took part in most of the decisions regarding the project's direction, and I've been a very active contributor, both in terms of commit and reviews. Looking for some numbers as of writing this, it looks like I've authored 142 merged MRs and approved 148 in GitLab UI only.
As a contributor...
I have regularly introduced small changes to try and improve developers' experience in the project, some examples:
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| Introduced a route map for smarter review app links | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1556 (merged) (2-0) |
| Improved the components generator to make it possible to generate the files in any directory | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1249 (merged) (183-32) |
Automatically document v-model in components docs |
gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1262 (merged) (129-3) |
| Added a global matcher to forbid Vue errors in Jest specs | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!888 (merged) (53-6) |
| Configured prettier to lint SCSS files | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!783 (merged) (782-272) |
I made several improvements to the project's workflows and documentation to help onboarding new contributors, and streamline reviews. Specifically:
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| Implemented a reviewers roulette | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!899 (merged) (450-1), gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1358 (merged) (95-5) |
| Started a docs improvement initiative | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui#587 (closed) |
| Added a CI job to help with the creation of integration branch to test GitLab UI changes in GitLab | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1007 (merged) (26-1) |
| Created a Merge Request template to help contributors ensure their changes comply with the project's guidelines | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui#753 (closed) |
I have regularly fixed bugs as they surfaced and did my best to keep the project up-to-date. I've had the pleasure of adding a few components to the library too:
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| Pagination | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!259 (merged) (847-123) |
| Broadcast Message | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!994 (merged) (504-0) |
| Checkbox Tree | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1269 (merged) (861-0) |
Over the last few months, I've been involved in some of the migration efforts to integrate GitLab UI components in the product to better enforce Pajamas' specifications, specifically Buttons and Tabs.
As a reviewer...
I've been very proactive at enforcing the use of conventional commits, by helping other write compliant commit messages, sharing info on how releases are created and published, writing commits guidelines, setting up changelogs, etc.
As mentioned above, I've been involved in a large amount of reviews in GitLab UI, here are some non-trivial examples that were merged with few or no changes request by the maintainer:
| Title | Changes | Link |
|---|---|---|
| feat(GlSafeHtmlDirective): Add directive to sanitize html | 278-1 | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1413 (merged) |
| feat(GlFormCombobox): Add GlCombobox component | 524-0 | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1549 (merged) |
| Refactor(GlTokenSelector): improve a11y of keyboard navigation | 157-188 | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1522 (merged) |
| feat(GlTokenSelector): Implement token selector component | 2380-5 | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1460 (merged) |
| feat: Adds an observer component | 293-3 | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!1132 (merged) |
| (chore): Update generate:component script to use plop | 776-28 | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!121 (merged) |
| feat: add drawer component | 437-0 | gitlab-org/gitlab-ui!861 (merged) |
Why would I want to become a GitLab UI maintainer?
I haven't been able to contribute to GitLab UI as much as I used to lately, and with the GitLab UI WG disbanding, the opportunities for me to give back to a project I love are getting even thinner. Becoming a maintainer would be a great way to stay involved in the project. I'm hoping that, by taking advantage of my experience in GitLab UI, I can help others contribute by providing the best guidance possible. I also want to try and reduce the bottleneck on GitLab frontend maintainers who might not be as accustomed to GitLab UI as I am and are very busy with GitLab MRs. Finally, since reviewing code is a task that I really enjoy and want to get better at, I feel like this would help me a lot in that regard, and it might be a good first step towards becoming a maintainer for larger projects like GitLab.
/cc @nmccorrison