Interested in Joining the Dev Team? Read on...

[Shibumi]

So, you think you have what we are looking for to become part of the VirtueMart Dev Team?

Well, before you say yes… Here’s what we ARE really looking for:

1. You use VirtueMart now (or have in the past) and you love it.  When VM wont do something you want it to, you find a way to make it do what you want.
2. You are not necessarily an expert programmer/coder, but you go out of your way to find out HOW to do something that you are not sure of.
3. You have a strong desire to learn new things and always want to go further and learn more – you learn new things quickly.
4. Your are enthusiastic, energetic, and creative -> when solutions to problems don’t automatically present themselves, you find a way to solve the problem at hand
5. You love creating, The idea of taking an idea, turning it into something tangible and seeing it through the creation, testing and finalization process really appeals to you and gives you a great sense of achievement and accomplishment.
6. You have a passion, a motivation, a drive, a desire to do something more than what is expected of you, you don’t just accept what is given to you as something that is complete, you want to improve upon it.
7. Lastly, you would be proud and honoured to be a part of a team that is going to change and revolutionize open source eCommerce

If you believe you have these qualities, then we want you.

[keliix06]

I would be interested in helping out. Been doing Mambo and Joomla development for 3+ years now.

At one point I had the 4th most popular project at the old mamboforge (ArtistDirectory).

I can offer up a few hours a week for development needs, and would be available for support stuff quite a bit. Hosting keeps me tied to my computer answering support tickets

[mrosile]

Hey all,
     I would really like to be apart of the VM development team!  I have strong PHP and MySQL skills.  I was just introduced to Joomla a few months ago and JUST found out about VM!  I love the project and I certainly want to keep it alive!  I've already offered to help with some payment modules (Google Checkout and CyberSource).  I've also written my own PHP code for shipping services such as USPS and UPS.

     Much like most people here, I, too, have a full time job and family to look after.  I would only be able to contribute a few hours a week to development, but I REALLY, REALLY want to see VM survive!

     I see myself developing components or modules, however, I, too have turned to the documentation on several occasions and have found it lacking!  Above all, first and foremost, I would like to help build better documentation, especially for developers.

     I'm a bit ignorant when it comes to sourceforge.net, but has anyone considered moving the VirtueMart development over to sourceforge?  Just a thought...

- Mike R

[r0tt3n]

Greetings,

I would like to express my interest in joining VM's core or components dev team.

[cv]
I completed my Hons B.Sc in Computer Science with Software Engineering Specialization in 2003 from the University of Western Ontario, and have been working in software the past 3 years.  I learned of Joomla on Slashdot during its transition from Mambo about a year ago, and got the idea to start a company that consults with small businesses who want a better online e-commerce web presence, but don't have the money, knowledge, or manpower to do it.  Since that time I've been working full-time as a contractor doing exactly that, doing graphics editing by day, and hacking away at joomla and virtuemart by night.

While using the VirtueMart forums, I met someone named Kawika who was involved in a thread about Virtuemart supporting subscriptions.  The result was my involvement in an initiative to modify virtuemart's core to enable subscriptions, as well as to bridge 6 components at once (joomla, jaclplus, virtuemart, docman, community builder, and smf) called called JBridge.  Really, the goal of JBridge was just to be a proof of concept, whose ultimate goal was to get these modifications adopted into the cores of the components we modified.  The most important component to me has always been Virtuemart, and I can't think of a better way to spend my time and support my livelihood than to become a virtuemart core developer.

That being said, I've never been involved in an open source software project before, but I've been wanting to for a while, and given that my company's ability to function depends solely on virtuemart's ability to be reliable, once again, I can't think of a better way or a more fruitful way to support that interest than to become a core dev.  I have at least 10 hours a week to devote to this.  I've been a very active member of the community over the past year, particularily on joomla and virtuemart forums, but also over at the vTiger forums trying to get some more advanced CRM cross-over integration between vTiger and Joomla+Virtuemart (the first step is under-way).  You can find me hangin out in the unofficial virtuemart irc chat room #virtuemart at chat.freenode.net.  So, let me know.
[/cv]

Take care.

[tezza]

OK. So if this topic is to distinguish itself from the "VirtueMart Future, Development Team" topic then people need to address the selection criteria. I have already expressed my interest in helping, but I am happy to formalise it against Jeff's critera.

1. You use VirtueMart now (or have in the past) and you love it.  When VM wont do something you want it to, you find a way to make it do what you want.

I've only adopted VM recently, but I already love it. It's the horse I'm backing to provide commercial support for. I wouldn't have chosen it if I did not believe in it's potential.

2. You are not necessarily an expert programmer/coder, but you go out of your way to find out HOW to do something that you are not sure of.

I must confess, the whole reason why I want to improve VM is to prevent other programmers from having to go out of their way in order to bend VM to their will. However, I do understand the spirit of the question. Yeah, I can dig in, drill down, and deconstruct when I want something done. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty.

3. You have a strong desire to learn new things and always want to go further and learn more – you learn new things quickly.

I have a strong design to learn things when they are relevent to me. VM is very relevent to my current business ventures. You don't stay an optamistic practitioner as long as I have without updating your skills through a continued desire to learn.

4. Your are enthusiastic, energetic, and creative -> when solutions to problems don’t automatically present themselves, you find a way to solve the problem at hand

Actually, this is probably my biggest weakness. I can have periods of great energy and creativity followed by periods of inactivity. This isn't due to lack of commitment, this is more due to competing interests - which also garner my energy and enthusiasm.

To counter this, I will only make a commitment to a small area (HTML/CSS output). That way I can stay focused.

5. You love creating, The idea of taking an idea, turning it into something tangible and seeing it through the creation, testing and finalization process really appeals to you and gives you a great sense of achievement and accomplishment.

Wouldn't be a programmer if I didn't.

6. You have a passion, a motivation, a drive, a desire to do something more than what is expected of you, you don’t just accept what is given to you as something that is complete, you want to improve upon it.

This is my natural view of the software development process.

7. Lastly, you would be proud and honoured to be a part of a team that is going to change and revolutionize open source eCommerce

Dude, I like your style. It would be a pleasure to work in a team that has real VISION!

"Go hard, or go home!" (as we like to say down under)


Skills I can bring to the table (my strengths):

• I know PHP very well. I've been coding it for a living for years.
• I'm familar with the open-source development process
• I have a good deal of experience in web applications, markup, and ergonomic UI design
• I'm a perfectionist

[labber]

I would be interested in joining the VM Dev Team.

My name is Rob, I am a multimedia designer.  I work for an e-commerce company and have spent about a year working with Joomla/virtuemart making designs, images, buttons, layouts, etc...  I would be interested in making templates, layout changes, buttons, images, and more for virtuemart.

I also use SVN for all my projects at work, i work side by side with my programmer in customizing virtuemart so i am familiar with some basic php.  I also love virtuemart and can't wait to improve upon it.

Programs i use:

Flash 8
Dreamweaver 8
Photoshop CS 2
Illustrator CS 2
Final Cut Pro

Look forward to working with the VM Dev Team

[joomlacorner]

Hi All
   I interested to joining the VM Dev Team, My name is Akarawuth Tamrareang from MamboHub.com / JoomlaCorner.com  Thailand. We working for Mambo with Core Team and Joomla (Translation Partner) and Now we have finish Joomla 1.0.11+VM 1.0.6 Thai UTF-8 Version.
and We will open Virtuemart Workshop in Thailand in next 1-2 months.

[adminu2m]

Hi,

I have only just read this and other postings and totally agree this is probably the best shopping cart available and from that base it can only get better. I would really like to contribute.

I have spent the last 8 years involved in eCommerce, 3 years in my own consultancy and the previous 5 years for a US based multinational company, involving and being part of the developement and rollout of a multilingual currency and multi business processes ecommerce site

I would like to offer support my support and time about 8 hours a week.

My skills are business process, project management, documentation, testing ---- test documentation and rollout, enough knowlege of PHP and mySQL to be dangerous, with excellent database design skills.

Cheers

Steve

[GlobeTrotter]

Hi, from Greece...

I'm already a member of the Greek translation team but would like to contribute some code in other areas of VM...

I've already developed payment modules for Greek banks and know my way with the payment modules in general...

Maybe I could help in this area as well as the shippment modules or any other area I would be useful...


Regards

Michael

[Fotis Evangelou]

Hi, this is Fotis Evangelou from JoomlaWorks.gr

Me and George Chouliaras have developed several extensions for Joomla! (AllVideos Plugin, Ultimate AJAX Newsflash, Tabs In Content Items etc.) and are quite familiar with VM's architecture, from simple hacks to payment/shipping modules etc.

I personally would be interested in participating in the design process (fluent in XHTML/CSS and tableless design), cause VM really needs some facelift and really needs a designer-oriented external CSS file for that. It is not difficult, cause I've done this in the past for several e-shops, based on VM and even on phpShop.

I have already made some changes for a more consistent layout in the backend, as well as some "CSS-ifications"! A lot of "messages" are still outside the language files, too, which I have corrected. Don't worry, I keep a nice changelog for all that: file, code line and code change specific!

Besides, that, I would be interested in helping implement/integrate some Joomla! extensions (and JoomlaWorks' extensions of course) to VM. Videos or images for example should have better support on VM, in my opinion. And in this particular field, VM documentation for extending its features is simply non-existent!

I don't know if it's a little late in participating, but I would gladly help.

Fotis Evangelou
Athens, Greece

www.joomlaworks.gr

[Shibumi]

Good stuff Fotis, make sure you PM Soeren with your details and experience!

Cheers

[Fotis Evangelou]

Thanks Jeff, will do that...

[Shibumi]

Hey Fotis,

My pleasure... I used the AllVideos Bot and the Tab in Content on my site... very useful! I'm sure once you get in contact with Soeren, he will be very interested.

Cheers

[Fotis Evangelou]

I already PMed Soeren, Jeff, thanks for the tip and glad you use some of my extensions.

[r0tt3n]

I second that Jeff...

Fotis' work with the allvideos bot (now featured on the homepage of three of my sites, such as www.irrigro.com) as well as the content tabs has been outstanding.  I'd love to see what he can do with VM!