I actually wrote a short tutorial on this (geared towards enterprise though) a while back[1]. For open source, I would amend it by adding that you should hang

I actually wrote a short tutorial on this (geared towards enterprise though) a while back[1]. For open source, I would amend it by adding that you should hang out in the chat room -- you will pick up some answers to easy getting started questions by osmosis and be a better known name when you are ready to submit a patch -- and read any contributing guides that outline procedures for contributors. You should do this if you ever want to contribute even if you don't think you have the understanding/skill level to do so yet. Over time I've begun to understand that what really causes issues with junior devs and established codebases is at least 50% psychological -- young good coders think code should be like a math problem, there is a number of formulas they know, they identify the problem, apply the formula, solve everything. When faced with a lot of code where the problem is not well-characterized, they start thinking they are not smart enough for the problem and the ensuing anxiety spiral usually makes them _actually_ not smart enough to see the forest for the trees. [1]: http://arandr.github.io/2015/01/17/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-debug-other-peoples-code.html http://arandr.github.io/2015/01/17/how-i-learned-to-stop-wor...