Merge pull request #44 from seanmadsen/wiki-before-you-start

Wiki import "Before you start" and "Recommendations" pages

docs/basics/planning.md

+# Planning your project
+
+## Community input
+
+Before you start on any code to extend CiviCRM, it is really important
+to discuss your ideas with the community. Here are a few of the reasons
+why this is a good idea:
+
+-   It may have been done already
+-   You'll get suggestions and advice on suitable ways to approach the
+    problem
+-   Other people will know what you are doing, and be able to contact
+    you if they want to collaborate
+
+A typical pre-development workflow will start with a discussion on
+[Mattermost](https://chat.civicrm.org/) (in the Developer channel) about what
+you want to do. Here you'll receive feedback from other members of the
+community and core team about your ideas. You might be lucky and find
+out that there is a already a way to do what you want using the user
+interface (and that no coding is necessary). Or it might be that someone
+has done something similar already and all that is required is a few
+tweaks to their code.
+
+
+## Requirements and specifications
+
+If and when you have confirmed that some coding is required, it is good
+practice, even for relatively small projects, to write
+
+-   a requirements document which describes in detail what you want the
+    finished code to do
+-   a specification that outlines how you are going to meet these
+    requirements with CiviCRM
+
+The requirements are typically written to be understandable to end
+users, and the specification can be thought of as a translation of those
+requirements into the language of CiviCRM. Both requirements and
+specification should go on the
+[wiki](http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/CiviCRM+Wiki).
+
+Once you've written the requirements and specification document, you
+should go about soliciting feedback.  Get feedback on the requirements
+from your end users and feedback on the requirements and the
+specification from anyone that is willing to comment. To encourage more
+discussion, you can write a post on CiviCRM's
+[blog](https://civicrm.org/blog/), tweet it out with
+the [#civicrm](https://twitter.com/hashtag/civicrm) hashtag, tell similar
+CiviCRM users and organisations and so on.
+The more feedback you can get the better.
+
+If you get stuck writing your requirements and specification, or would
+like to get more background, have a look at some
+[existing requirements and specifications](https://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Requirements+and+specifications)
+from CiviCRM developers.
+
+## Recommendations
+
+**Use Git and [GitHub](https://github.com/)** for revision control.
+The official CiviCRM [repositories](https://github.com/civicrm)
+are housed on GitHub.  If you use GitHub you will find
+it easy to access the latest source-code, to submit pull requests
+for any patches you create and to collaborate with many other
+CiviCRM developers who also use GitHub.
+
+**Create a native [extension](/extensions/basics)**.
+If you have new functionality to add to CiviCRM, it probably belongs in an
+extension. "Native" extensions will install into all CiviCRM sites
+regardless of the  underlying CMS used (Drupal or Wordpress), making it easy to
+share your extension with the CiviCRM community.
+
+**Use the [API](/api/general)** to access and manage CiviCRM data in any patch,
+native extension, CMS module, or external program that you
+develop. The API will function as expected with every new release
+and backwards compatibility of the API is maintained for several
+versions of CiviCRM.
+
+**Follow the
+[Coding Standards](https://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Coding+Standards)**
+for uniform structure that will make everyone's development work easier.
+
+
+## Make it happen
+
+If you need or would like extra resources for your code improvement, you
+might consider a [Make It Happen](https://civicrm.org/make-it-happen)
+(aka MIH) campaign, which is a crowd-sourcing initiative for CiviCRM.
+The MIH work is carried out by the
+core team or trusted consultants, and has helped build many amazing new
+features into CiviCRM in recent years.
+

mkdocs.yml

@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ pages:
   - Developer Community: basics/community.md
   - Prerequisite skills: basics/skills.md
   - Requirements: requirements.md
+  - Planning your project: basics/planning.md
   - Build: build.md
   - Customize: customize.md
   - Extend: extend.md

redirects/wiki-crmdoc.txt

 Documentation+Infrastructure+Canary develop
 The+developer+community basics/community
 Create+an+Extension extensions/basics
+Before+you+start basics/planning
+Recommendations basics/planning
 The+codebase core/architecture