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First Timers Only

medium.com

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Re: First Timers Only

#61

Post by peterjmag »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #47

Great read. My favorite part is this bullet point: > Use npm scripts so people don’t have to understand or globally install any build tools I do this on every project I work on. In fact, where possible, I completely skip globals entirely (for instance in my msngr.js library it uses Grunt but it executes grunt locally without it being installed globally on the machine). I think it's really important that anyone can go…

Agreed! This saved us all kinds of headaches in a large project at my old company (not open source in this case, but still helpful).

I left a similar response on Medium before I noticed your comment: https://medium.com/@peterjmag/great-tip-d6fcdec36e13

Re: First Timers Only

#62

Post by AlexC04 »

One thing that he left off his list of things to make contributing successful is seeking up a "docker" box which is ready to go for development.

(Or a vagrant file)

If the image is set up so it "just works" and has all tools preinstalled, you can be up and running locally in seconds.

With NPM scripts, its often possible to run I to problems with node-gyp... Or any other number of cross platform incompatiblities.

The docker/vagrant route is a really novel solution I've seen used effectively in other projects.

Re: First Timers Only

#63

Post by metasean »

Along the same lines, I'd encourage everyone, first timers and grey beards alike to check out http://24pullrequests.com/ (they use a 'beginner' instead of 'first-timers-only' as their novice-friendly tag).

If you're in the Salt Lake area, also please consider joining us next Saturday [1] or Tuesday, Dec. 15 [2] as we give a little back to the Open Source community!

[1] SLC JS Learners - monthly JavaScript Study Group - http://www.meetup.com/SLC-JS-Learners/events/224563977/ [2] SLC JS Learners - monthly meetup - http://www.meetup.com/SLC-JS-Learners/events/226862778/

Re: First Timers Only

#64

Post by peterjmag »

I love this.

I've been thinking about a very similar issue for a while now, and I'm still trying to organize my thoughts into a blog post or something, but here's the basic idea:

Hire more juniors. Or cross-train people from other departments[1]. Doesn't really matter who. But they should be pretty darn close to beginners.

Assign a relatively small issue to them. The kind of thing that would only take about an hour for a more senior dev to look in to. Plan more than an hour for the junior. Probably a lot more. Also plan some time for one of those more senior devs. Sit them down next to each other.

Point the junior to the readme. Ask the junior to ping / poke / bother the senior every time they hit a roadblock. Every single time. Ask them to be relentlessly persistent. (Not everyone's good at being relentlessly persistent. So encourage them. Create an environment where they feel like they can be relentlessly persistent.) Then leave them alone.

Give it a day or two. Watch as interesting things start to happen.

Watch as the junior dev learns how to be a better communicator. Watch as they learn how to make problems visible. How to get help. And as an added bonus: how to program.

Watch as the senior dev goes insane at first from all the questions. Watch them start to wonder how they can avoid going through this every time somebody needs to touch their code. Watch them remove obstacles. Or at least reduce their number. Watch them automate things. Or speed up things that are already automated. Or improve processes in ways they had never even considered before sitting with the junior. Also watch them learn how to be a better communicator.

Do this a few times. Watch for magical things. Code quality improves. Onboarding times plummet. Hiring friction melts away. Teamwork starts... working. Productivity skyrockets. Job satisfaction goes up. Happiness prevails.

-----

[1] See also https://twitter.com/patio11/status/657902663686754304

Re: First Timers Only

#65

Post by J_Darnley »

eitland wrote: post #57
eitland wrote: post #48

Jenkins has been filling my twitter feed with information for new contributors lately under the hashtag #hacksgiving I think. Edit: Changed "spamming" to "filling" That was meant as a positive thing but I guess I shouldn't have used the word spamming.

Anyone care sharing why I keep getting downvoted for this one? By all means feel free but this one was more than a little puzzling to me : )

Probably because you used "spamming". Or you spoke poorly about someone's favourite tool.

Re: First Timers Only

#66

Post by jameshart »

ultrafez wrote: post #50
realityking wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pull request is very much git terminology. Here's the documentation for 'git request-pull': https://git-scm.com/docs/git-request-pull

If you're being picky, then I can be picky too: the concept of a "pull request" isn't defined in that manpage, only the command "request-pull" is. A "pull request" is an entity in itself. The command may exist within git, but it's not a part of most people's git workflows. "Pull Request" is a term that's far more commonly attributed-to and associated with tools like GitHub, Gitlab, Bitbucket etc. Did you know that gi…

You're being ridiculously obtuse here. A 'pull request' is simply the result of calling the git 'request-pull' command. That's just how english works, because the result of 'requesting' is a 'request', so the result of 'requesting a pull' is a 'pull request', in the same way that the result of 'ordering a pizza' is a 'pizza order', and if git had an 'order-pizza' command, it would result in 'pizza orders'.

Re: First Timers Only

#67

Post by jondubois »

Bahamut wrote: post #22
jondubois wrote: post #12

There are a lot of ways to contribute that don't involve making pull requests. Identifying and raising issues is a good place to start for someone who is not familiar with the codebase.

A caveat to that is that they need to be well-researched before filing issues - otherwise it actually is a negative, especially when a modicum of effort reveals when something actually is a usage issue and not a bug.

I actually don't mind if users report 'issues' which turn out to be their own fault. In some cases this could indicate that a feature in your project isn't intuitive enough. Also I like having as many issues as possible - It creates a knowledge base for your project which people can search through.

Re: First Timers Only

#68

Post by ithinkso »

ant6n wrote: post #20
crottypeter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TDD is acceptable as it is the top search result for TDD. PR on the other hand ... Acronyms and abbreviations with well defined / well known alternative meanings really bug me. Actually Acronyms and abbreviations bug me full stop.

Well, I googled both, which kinda bugs the flow of reading the article. Abbreviations bug me too.

Well, what about RAM, PC and so on? They might be an extreme example but if you are in the 'field' not using abbreviations may actually bug you more. Targeting audience is not an easy task.

Re: First Timers Only

#69

Post by ant6n »

ithinkso wrote: post #68
ant6n wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I googled both, which kinda bugs the flow of reading the article. Abbreviations bug me too.

Well, what about RAM, PC and so on? They might be an extreme example but if you are in the 'field' not using abbreviations may actually bug you more. Targeting audience is not an easy task.

Didn't have to google RAM, PC and so on.

Re: First Timers Only

#70

Post by yoha »

ithinkso wrote: post #68
ant6n wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I googled both, which kinda bugs the flow of reading the article. Abbreviations bug me too.

Well, what about RAM, PC and so on? They might be an extreme example but if you are in the 'field' not using abbreviations may actually bug you more. Targeting audience is not an easy task.

It is often better to use “computer” and “memory”, especially when the distinction between L1/L2/L3/RAM/SSD/HDD is not the main topic.
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