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This is a neat idea, but I'd recommend starting on an altnerative. Pick an open source project and modify its behavior. It will serve as a code style corpus to

This is a neat idea, but I'd recommend starting on an altnerative. Pick an open source project and modify its behavior. It will serve as a code style corpus to guide the process, and it's already a polished product, so you don't have to get into the nitty gritty of the last 20%. For a more concrete example, I learned php by creating a phpbb instance for my friends and then making addons/changing how it worked. The ratio of work done to results accomplished was high. It's also very valuable to learn how codebases might be laid out and how to just find the parts you want.

freehunter 10y ago
I learned PHP from hacking an open-source project I wasn't quite happy with as well. Highly recommended, it's really hard to sit down at a blank screen and create something from scratch. Much easier to sit down at a code base that's 90% of what you want and hacking the rest of it to bits. At least you know what you're starting with already works.
kmf 10y ago
I agree that OS projects are a great way to learn, but I don't think that most people would be able to _start_ coding from an open-source project. I found it really useful to look at Ruby projects on GitHub after reading a book or two: I wouldn't even had known where to begin if I opened up a GitHub project on day one. YMMV, though–I've always got the sense that PHP would be an easy language to jump into and begin hacking on. Same with the classic HTML/CSS/JS stack, which this project focuses on. Maybe it's a language-dependent thing?
- godmodus 10y ago
  which books did you read beforehand ?
  - kmf 10y ago
    It's been a while now, but I really liked Eloquent Ruby. If you're looking for Rails-specific knowledge, the Hartl tutorial (I think it's just called Rails Tutorial) is fantastic. There's a print version, but the web one is free (at least when I read it) and stays updated.
GuiA 10y ago
> It will serve as a code style corpus to guide the process, and it's already a polished product, so you don't have to get into the nitty gritty of the last 20%. Yes, this is spot on. I work in an industrial R&D department where engineers are expected to be fairly independent; on a recent project, an engineer whose skillset we had misestimated during the interview had a really hard time starting the codebase from scratch, architecting the software, etc. It had to be saved close to the last minute by a senior engineer (to be fair, the manager should have kept a closer eye on the project). For that engineer's next project, we assigned her to something already established and architected, and she's been doing great. Her programming/architecture skills grew tremendously in a few months by being immersed in that codebase. (I was the senior engineer who had to be called in for the first project, and lead on the second project. The engineer in question was great in many other areas critical for the job, just her software carpentry skills that were lacking).
- joatmon-snoo 10y ago
  It's also a skill that schools don't do a very good job of. Right now I'm TA'ing a C++ class and the sheer stupidity of some of the questions that I get asked is ridiculous (I say stupidity, but it's really a mix of (1) some actual stupidity, (2) students not thinking for themselves, (3) students having no idea where to look and/or stuff was explained by hand-waving it away.) One thing we've done, for instance, is require that students submit their code via GitHub and make their code compile under both GCC and Clang on Travis. On the last assignment, the professor made a mistake when duplicating the Travis config file, so Travis kept trying to run a binary that wasn't there, because the new assignment had a different name for the compiled binary. The sheer number of emails and questions I got was absolutely ridiculous - and granted, I didn't blame the students for asking, because the entire toolchain side of things had sort of been hand-waved away from them, but the fix was literally replacing "./hw4-submission" with "./hw5-submission" in the Travis config. The point I'm getting at, I guess - because this isn't so much a thing about codebase architecture as knowing the tools you have to use - is that too much time is spent in the traditional CS education telling students to fill in code, or giving them frameworks and saying "make your thing work with this", instead of making them design stuff ground-up.
crdoconnor 10y ago
Setting up a build, testing and development toolchain on open source projects is often a nightmare. Added to which on large projects there's often an element of fear over changing things and breaking other things.
autotune 10y ago
As an even more concrete example, all you have to do is click on the "issues" page of a project you like on github and start fixing things. Slowly work your way up the chain from adding documentation, to fixing low priority issues, to fixing high priority issues, and then to adding new features. Looks great on a resume as well and you'll likely be able to get yourself into job interviews at the very least as you continue building your skill set.
askvictor 10y ago
Disagree; the complexity of any mature project is usually massive, and just getting to understand what's going on where is too much for someone learning. Not to mention that usually there will be a framework involved, which have their own learning overhead.
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  Not to mention that 'polished' is not necessarily an adjective that one would apply to a lot of open source or closed source projects. But you could pick a small one that is actively maintained on Github, fork it, and try to improve it. Offer the improvements to the originator and see if you can help each other.
askvictor 10y ago
Disagree; the complexity of any mature project is usually massive, and just getting to understand what's going on where is too much for someone learning. Not to mention that usually there will be a framework involved, which have their own learning overhead.
PagingCraig 10y ago
I've been coding for 6 months. What open source project can I even remotely understand?!

freehunter 10y ago

I learned PHP from hacking an open-source project I wasn't quite happy with as well. Highly recommended, it's really hard to sit down at a blank screen and create something from scratch. Much easier to sit down at a code base that's 90% of what you want and hacking the rest of it to bits. At least you know what you're starting with already works.

kmf 10y ago

I agree that OS projects are a great way to learn, but I don't think that most people would be able to _start_ coding from an open-source project. I found it really useful to look at Ruby projects on GitHub after reading a book or two: I wouldn't even had known where to begin if I opened up a GitHub project on day one. YMMV, though–I've always got the sense that PHP would be an easy language to jump into and begin hacking on. Same with the classic HTML/CSS/JS stack, which this project focuses on. Maybe it's a language-dependent thing?

godmodus 10y ago
which books did you read beforehand ?
- kmf 10y ago
  It's been a while now, but I really liked Eloquent Ruby. If you're looking for Rails-specific knowledge, the Hartl tutorial (I think it's just called Rails Tutorial) is fantastic. There's a print version, but the web one is free (at least when I read it) and stays updated.

GuiA 10y ago

> It will serve as a code style corpus to guide the process, and it's already a polished product, so you don't have to get into the nitty gritty of the last 20%. Yes, this is spot on. I work in an industrial R&D department where engineers are expected to be fairly independent; on a recent project, an engineer whose skillset we had misestimated during the interview had a really hard time starting the codebase from scratch, architecting the software, etc. It had to be saved close to the last minute by a senior engineer (to be fair, the manager should have kept a closer eye on the project). For that engineer's next project, we assigned her to something already established and architected, and she's been doing great. Her programming/architecture skills grew tremendously in a few months by being immersed in that codebase. (I was the senior engineer who had to be called in for the first project, and lead on the second project. The engineer in question was great in many other areas critical for the job, just her software carpentry skills that were lacking).

joatmon-snoo 10y ago
It's also a skill that schools don't do a very good job of. Right now I'm TA'ing a C++ class and the sheer stupidity of some of the questions that I get asked is ridiculous (I say stupidity, but it's really a mix of (1) some actual stupidity, (2) students not thinking for themselves, (3) students having no idea where to look and/or stuff was explained by hand-waving it away.) One thing we've done, for instance, is require that students submit their code via GitHub and make their code compile under both GCC and Clang on Travis. On the last assignment, the professor made a mistake when duplicating the Travis config file, so Travis kept trying to run a binary that wasn't there, because the new assignment had a different name for the compiled binary. The sheer number of emails and questions I got was absolutely ridiculous - and granted, I didn't blame the students for asking, because the entire toolchain side of things had sort of been hand-waved away from them, but the fix was literally replacing "./hw4-submission" with "./hw5-submission" in the Travis config. The point I'm getting at, I guess - because this isn't so much a thing about codebase architecture as knowing the tools you have to use - is that too much time is spent in the traditional CS education telling students to fill in code, or giving them frameworks and saying "make your thing work with this", instead of making them design stuff ground-up.

crdoconnor 10y ago

Setting up a build, testing and development toolchain on open source projects is often a nightmare. Added to which on large projects there's often an element of fear over changing things and breaking other things.

autotune 10y ago

As an even more concrete example, all you have to do is click on the "issues" page of a project you like on github and start fixing things. Slowly work your way up the chain from adding documentation, to fixing low priority issues, to fixing high priority issues, and then to adding new features. Looks great on a resume as well and you'll likely be able to get yourself into job interviews at the very least as you continue building your skill set.

askvictor 10y ago

Disagree; the complexity of any mature project is usually massive, and just getting to understand what's going on where is too much for someone learning. Not to mention that usually there will be a framework involved, which have their own learning overhead.

kwhitefoot 10y ago
Not to mention that 'polished' is not necessarily an adjective that one would apply to a lot of open source or closed source projects. But you could pick a small one that is actively maintained on Github, fork it, and try to improve it. Offer the improvements to the originator and see if you can help each other.

askvictor 10y ago

PagingCraig 10y ago

I've been coding for 6 months. What open source project can I even remotely understand?!