For the first time, I have contributed something to a Open Source project. I have used many over the years and even contributed to various forum offering mostly help and learning all along, but, until today, have never really gave much back. It isn't that I didn't want to, but I either felt that I had nothing new to offer or I simply didn't have the time.
What led to the change? Over the last few months I have been trying to get a few different systems running Apache as test boxes. Although I've done so with success plenty of times before, I've ran into a few bumps this time around. As I have been pressed for time, giving it a few minutes here and a few there, I wasn't seeing the whole picture and missed some really minor details that made a big difference. In any event, over the last few days, I sat down, gave it my full attention and then, last night, it hit me. I was changing the wrong settings in the wrong place. D'oh! In the process, I learned allot about Apache and its various settings. I may be no expert, but I can find my way around.
What does this have to do with any project contributions? Again, over the last few months, I have kept my eye on CakePHP, a MVC framework in PHP, inspired by RoR. I've been following the CakePHP list and noted a trend of people having difficulty getting the two very simple rewrite rules to work. It occurred to me that someone needs to write a troubleshooting tutorial for the CakePHP Wiki.
Well, last night, after having my ah-ha! moment, I felt inspired to write one up. So here it is: Troubleshooting the Blog Tutorial. It could have easily been titled Enabling Mod_Rewrite in Apache, as it contains nothing specific to CakePHP. Perhaps, as we gather troubleshooting tips specific to Cake, those will go in this page, and my writeup will be moved to its own, more appropriately named page. Time will tell.
