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I'd love to have an easier way to get involved in some open source project for improving my skills, enhancing my CV, etc. My main challenge is being overwhelme

by zainny 14y ago

I'd love to have an easier way to get involved in some open source project for improving my skills, enhancing my CV, etc. My main challenge is being overwhelmed with information and I can't seem to find a good place to get started on any project.

xcubic 14y ago
That makes 2 of us! ;)
- excid3 14y ago
  I know that feeling. One of the best ways is to just ask one of the developers on a project you like. There's always something to do.
  - xcubic 14y ago
    That's a good approach to it :)
Garbage 14y ago
I remember someone saying, "if you don't know where to start, search for '//TODO:' on Github." :)
- SatvikBeri 14y ago
  Do you have any sources that elaborate? I've actually spent several hours trying to figure out how to contribute to open source, and given up out of frustration.
hanleybrand 14y ago
"I'd love to have an easier way to get involved in some open source project for improving my skills, enhancing my CV, etc." Not to sound trite, but I don't think the reasons you enumerated for contributing to a project would give most people enough incentive to spend the energy figuring out how to contribute to most projects. Find the project that makes you go "yeah!" and you'll find it much easier to get acclimated to whatever it is, because you'll really want to understand how it works.
hanleybrand 14y ago
"I'd love to have an easier way to get involved in some open source project for improving my skills, enhancing my CV, etc." Not to sound trite, but I don't think the reasons you enumerated for contributing to a project would give most people enough incentive to spend the energy figuring out how to contribute to most projects. Find the project that makes you go "yeah!" and you'll find it much easier to get acclimated to whatever it is, because you'll really want to understand how it works.
reledi 14y ago
There's actually lots of opportunity for this. It's way easier to get involved in open source now than it ever was. - GitHub, Google Code, Bitbucket, SourceForge, CodePlex, ... - Google Summer of Code, Undergraduate Capstone Open Source Projects, OpenHatch, ... Getting involved in open source is easy, there's way too many projects that die or go unmaintained because there's no one to help. I have a few projects that could use contributors, but I assume you want to get involved in an active, serious, and popular open source project. Whatever project you're interested in, subscribe to their mailing list (won't hurt to introduce yourself), join their IRC channel, look at their open issues, grep the source for TODOs, look for something to improve, and submit your patch.

by zainny 14y ago

xcubic 14y ago

That makes 2 of us! ;)

excid3 14y ago
I know that feeling. One of the best ways is to just ask one of the developers on a project you like. There's always something to do.
- xcubic 14y ago
  That's a good approach to it :)

Garbage 14y ago

I remember someone saying, "if you don't know where to start, search for '//TODO:' on Github." :)

SatvikBeri 14y ago
Do you have any sources that elaborate? I've actually spent several hours trying to figure out how to contribute to open source, and given up out of frustration.

hanleybrand 14y ago

"I'd love to have an easier way to get involved in some open source project for improving my skills, enhancing my CV, etc." Not to sound trite, but I don't think the reasons you enumerated for contributing to a project would give most people enough incentive to spend the energy figuring out how to contribute to most projects. Find the project that makes you go "yeah!" and you'll find it much easier to get acclimated to whatever it is, because you'll really want to understand how it works.

hanleybrand 14y ago

reledi 14y ago

There's actually lots of opportunity for this. It's way easier to get involved in open source now than it ever was. - GitHub, Google Code, Bitbucket, SourceForge, CodePlex, ... - Google Summer of Code, Undergraduate Capstone Open Source Projects, OpenHatch, ... Getting involved in open source is easy, there's way too many projects that die or go unmaintained because there's no one to help. I have a few projects that could use contributors, but I assume you want to get involved in an active, serious, and popular open source project. Whatever project you're interested in, subscribe to their mailing list (won't hurt to introduce yourself), join their IRC channel, look at their open issues, grep the source for TODOs, look for something to improve, and submit your patch.