Going and finding oss project that are similar to the things you’d actually write is hard enough, but then also figuring out if the code is any good when you do

Going and finding oss project that are similar to the things you’d actually write is hard enough, but then also figuring out if the code is any good when you don’t know what good code looks like is an even greater challenge. Even if you pull that off, you’re not really going to know why parts of it are any good. Ideally, you’d find a mentor who can review your code and give you pointers on how to improve it, with explanations on why those things would help. Those mentors aren’t easy to find either, but still...