DrupalCon

On April 20, five months after the launch of Drupal 8.0.0, we released Drupal 8.1.0, the first scheduled minor update. Drupal 8.1.0 comes with both new features and bug fixes that were not eligible for monthly patch releases. Now is a great time to try Drupal 8 if you haven't yet!

Drupal 8.1.0 is production-ready, but (like most software) still has known bugs that can cause issues for some modules or sites. Although we fixed hundreds of critical bugs during Drupal 8's development, and although only a handful of critical issues have been discovered since Drupal 8.0.0, there are still hundreds of less severe bug reports marked with "major" priority.

We did something awesome at DrupalCon Denver: on code sprint Friday, we filled a room with between 75 and 100 new Drupal core contributors and helped them work on core issues for the first time.

Participants learned everything from the mechanics of triaging issues to how to write automated tests. Six of us (myself, Andrea Soper, Tim Plunkett, Lin Clark, Cameron Eagans, andKelly Bell) introduced and led the sprint, and several other experienced contributors (including David Rothstein, Kieran Lal, and Cathy Theys) stepped up to help mentor during the course of the sprint. Angie Byron even demonstrated for participants how she reviews and commits core patches, and committed one participant's first core patch in real time on the big screen.

It was delightful to watch the participants' enthusiasm and collaboration. The morning was hectic, but as the day went on, the sprint leads answered fewer and fewer questions because the sprint participants helped each other.