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Everyone starts somewhere though. What alternatives would you suggest to introducing beginner developers to open source? For many, getting the smallest update

by TIPSIO 4y ago

Everyone starts somewhere though. What alternatives would you suggest to introducing beginner developers to open source? For many, getting the smallest update on a big project (although annoying to maintainers) is a huge and very motivating accomplishment.

dpkirchner 4y ago
Maybe pair off beginners with maintainers (volunteers) so beginners get more personal guidance and projects don't get overwhelmed with garbage.
- TIPSIO 4y ago
  Ooh! That’s a great idea. I think some sort of model to encourage helping of others carries weight.
  - dpkirchner 4y ago
    I didn't notice the repos must opt-in. That seems like an improvement but I get what you're saying. Hopefully successful beginners will move on to contributing to other projects more freely, though.
8b16380d 4y ago
I would have no problem merging even an additional sentence of documentation, but too often it’s a one letter change or something similarly useless. A bad faith effort like that does nothing for the project OR contributor.
- TIPSIO 4y ago
  I wonder if it will ever make sense for GitHub to have like an auto PR free-for-all wiki.md file that people could run wild with.
seba_dos1 4y ago
> What alternatives would you suggest to introducing beginner developers to open source? Alternatives to what? Hacktoberfest doesn't actually introduce beginner developers to open source at all. It only acts like a carrot on a stick by offering a T-Shirt for your contributions, anything else is exactly the same regardless of whether Hacktoberfest is there or not. So I guess no alternative needs to be suggested for what you asked for, as Hacktoberfest is pretty much all about providing external motivation. Generally, all contributions that are welcome during Hacktoberfest would be welcome without it as well, so as long as you want to contribute you can, Hacktoberfest being there or not.

by TIPSIO 4y ago

dpkirchner 4y ago

Maybe pair off beginners with maintainers (volunteers) so beginners get more personal guidance and projects don't get overwhelmed with garbage.

TIPSIO 4y ago
Ooh! That’s a great idea. I think some sort of model to encourage helping of others carries weight.
- dpkirchner 4y ago
  I didn't notice the repos must opt-in. That seems like an improvement but I get what you're saying. Hopefully successful beginners will move on to contributing to other projects more freely, though.

8b16380d 4y ago

I would have no problem merging even an additional sentence of documentation, but too often it’s a one letter change or something similarly useless. A bad faith effort like that does nothing for the project OR contributor.

TIPSIO 4y ago
I wonder if it will ever make sense for GitHub to have like an auto PR free-for-all wiki.md file that people could run wild with.

seba_dos1 4y ago

> What alternatives would you suggest to introducing beginner developers to open source? Alternatives to what? Hacktoberfest doesn't actually introduce beginner developers to open source at all. It only acts like a carrot on a stick by offering a T-Shirt for your contributions, anything else is exactly the same regardless of whether Hacktoberfest is there or not. So I guess no alternative needs to be suggested for what you asked for, as Hacktoberfest is pretty much all about providing external motivation. Generally, all contributions that are welcome during Hacktoberfest would be welcome without it as well, so as long as you want to contribute you can, Hacktoberfest being there or not.