Documentation for setting a development environment (#9944)

* Documentation for setting a development environment

* Fixed indentation

doc/Developing/Getting-Started.md

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+# Get ready to contribute to LibreNMS
+
+This document is intended to help you get your local environment set up to contribute code to the LibreNMS project.
+
+## Setting up a development environment
+
+When starting to develop, it may be tempting to just make changes on your production server, but that will make things harder
+for you.  Taking a little time to set up somewhere to work on code changes can really help.
+
+Possible options:
+ * A Linux computer, VM, or container
+ * Another directory on your LibreNMS server
+ * Windows Subsystem for Linux
+ 
+### Set up your development git clone
+ 1. Follow the [documentation on using git](Using-Git.md)
+ 2. Install development dependencies `./composer_wrapper.php install`
+ 3. Set variables in .env, including database settings.  Which could be a local or remote MySQL server including your production DB.
+ ```dotenv
+APP_ENV=local
+APP_DEBUG=true
+...
+
+```
+ 4. Start a development webserver `./lnms serve`
+ 5. Access the Web UI at http://localhost:8000
+
+### Automated testing
+LibreNMS uses continuous integration to test code changes to help reduce bugs.  This also helps guarantee the changes you 
+contribute won't be broken in the future.
+You can find out more in our [Validating Code Documentation](Validating-Code.md)
+
+### Polling debug output
+You can see detailed info by running your polling code in debug mode. If you are looking at a specific 
+```bash
+./discovery.php -d -h HOSTNAME
+./poller.php -d -h HOSTNAME
+```
+
+### Inspecting variables
+Sometimes you want to find out what a variable contains (such as the data return from an snmpwalk).
+You can dump one or more variables and halt execution with the dd() function.
+```php
+dd($variable1, $variable2);
+```
+
+### Inspecting web pages
+Installing the development dependencies and setting APP_DEBUG enables the [Laravel Debugbar](https://github.com/barryvdh/laravel-debugbar)
+This will allow you to inspect page generation and errors right in your web browser.
+
+### Better code completion in IDEs and editors
+You can generate some files to improve code completion. 
+(These file are not updated automatically, so you may need to re-run these command periodically)
+
+```bash
+./lnms ide-helper:generate
+./lnms ide-helper:models -N
+```
+
+### Emulating devices
+You can capture and emulate devices using [Snmpsim](https://github.com/etingof/snmpsim).  LibreNMS has a set of scripts to make it easier to work with snmprec files.
+[LibreNMS Snmpsim helpers](https://github.com/librenms/librenms-snmpsim)
+
+### Laravel documentation
+You can find a lot of how LibreNMS works by following the [Laravel Documentation](https://laravel.com/docs/)

doc/Developing/index.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ path: blob/master/doc/
 # Copyright and Licensing
 All contributors to LibreNMS retain copyright to their own code and are not
 required to sign over their rights to any other party. Code should be licensed
-under the GPLv3 and MUST not contain non-GPL Observium code or GPL incompatible code.
+under the GPLv3 and MUST NOT contain non-GPL Observium code or GPL incompatible code.
 To be safe do not view Observium code at all.  See [Licensing](Licensing.md) for more details.
 
 # General Guidelines
@@ -20,15 +20,15 @@ To be safe do not view Observium code at all.  See [Licensing](Licensing.md) for
   code at the same time.  This makes it harder to see what's changed.  If
   you need to reformat it after making the change, do so in a separate
   commit.
-- Please join us in [discord](https://t.libren.ms/discord) if you're
-  able.  Collaborating in real time makes the coordination of contributions
-  easier.
+- Please join us in [discord](https://discord.gg/librenms) if you are able.
+  Collaborating in real time makes the coordination of contributions easier.
 - Ensure you read the [Code Guidelines](Code-Guidelines.md) documentation and understand the code
   style that should be adhered to. You can [validate that your code adheres to these guidelines](Validating-Code.md) before submitting.
 - Check [Style Guidelines](Style-Guidelines.md) for Web UI guidelines and conventions.
 
 # How to Contribute?
 
+ - [Getting Started](Getting-Started.md) Set up your development environment to make things easier.
  - [Using Git](Using-Git.md) gives you step-by-step instructions on using git to submit a pull request.
  - [Code Structure](Code-Structure.md) can help you understand where specific code exists in LibreNMS.
  - [Creating Documentation](Creating-Documentation.md) It is very important for the continued
@@ -46,3 +46,4 @@ be delayed or brief, please be patient or ask for clarification if needed. Thank
   - [The PHP Practitioner](https://laracasts.com/series/php-for-beginners)
   - [Object-Oriented Bootcamp](https://laracasts.com/series/object-oriented-bootcamp-in-php)
   - [Simple Rules for Simpler Code](https://laracasts.com/series/simple-rules-for-simpler-code)
+  - [Laravel Documentation](https://laravel.com/docs/)