Pronking for Programmers
paulbutcher.com
Pronking for Programmers
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: Pronking for Programmers
#2How can someone who has time and could be that "fit gazelle" get into contributing to open source?
I have tried several times. At least, I've looked at a few of the suggestions on how to get started. All of the ideas don't quite work, though. Namely because most of the suggestions are things that I've either never even heard of or that I do not use. The gardening approach mentioned not long ago on this site seems very good for beginners - but I feel that just jumping in and starting with this could be a bad thing if the organization already has some sort of system set up.
For example, I have used Express. I don't really understand it well enough, and I've never had reason to, jump into the source code. There are only ten open issues. For just about every open source thing I've used, this is the case. Am I just doing something wrong?
Re: Pronking for Programmers
#3How can someone who has time and could be that "fit gazelle" get into contributing to open source? I have tried several times. At least, I've looked at a few of the suggestions on how to get started. All of the ideas don't quite work, though. Namely because most of the suggestions are things that I've either never even heard of or that I do not use. The gardening approach mentioned not long ago on this site seems ver…
Contributing to open source doesnt mean only contributing to someone else's project. You can always start yours, it can be as simple as you want and about whatever you want.
Re: Pronking for Programmers
#4"Hiring is so hard, so burn your free time to help me!"
Please don't contribute to OSS unless you really want to. It's great if you do. But making it a near-mandatory requirement just means that it drives yet more self-promotion (it isn't a real project unless you buy a domain!), more low quality contributions, and, ultimately, becomes yet another thing-you-really-should-be-doing.
Re: Pronking for Programmers
#5As noted, it's expensive. I've encountered potential employers who were lukewarm because I hadn't done enough work in open repos to impress them. That's understandable, it is rational to tend towards "no" instead of "yes" when evaluating developers. But to me it seems strange to do open source work just to be more attractive to employers. So I guess it really is an honest signal. I'm not going out of my way to do a bunch of stuff to impress you because I already have a good job, so you could be ignoring good candidates with this mindset. But like I mentioned, some people might be OK with that.
Re: Pronking for Programmers
#6How can someone who has time and could be that "fit gazelle" get into contributing to open source? I have tried several times. At least, I've looked at a few of the suggestions on how to get started. All of the ideas don't quite work, though. Namely because most of the suggestions are things that I've either never even heard of or that I do not use. The gardening approach mentioned not long ago on this site seems ver…
I would suggest reading through the Express (or any popular project) source code to improve yourself as a JavaScript developer. As you do, there will inevitably be things you notice that should be fixed. E.g. typos, edge cases, refactoring[0]. Fixing those will help you familiarize yourself with the project, the process, and will eventually lead to bigger contributions.
[0] Though be careful with that. Only refactor stuff if you're pretty confident about how it works, and that your changes don't decrease performance or readability.
Re: Pronking for Programmers
#7How can someone who has time and could be that "fit gazelle" get into contributing to open source? I have tried several times. At least, I've looked at a few of the suggestions on how to get started. All of the ideas don't quite work, though. Namely because most of the suggestions are things that I've either never even heard of or that I do not use. The gardening approach mentioned not long ago on this site seems ver…
Don't force it. If the itch isn't there, don't scratch it.
Instead, look for things that are interesting to you, follow your passion; if that eventually leads to an OSS project (either your own or helping on an existing one), great! Just avoid toxic startup cultures that require forced OSS track records and then provide "unlimited" vacations.
Re: Pronking for Programmers
#8When I look at the best programmers I know, none have them have done any open source work whatsoever. This group of people ranges from IBM fellows who created some of the earliest minicomputers to IMO medalists who are unbelievably fast problem solvers. I'm not going to say that's a generalizeable statement. It's not, and that's the point -- it's a side effect of spending a career working in teams where people care more about playing with their kids or doing research or whatever than open source.
It's not even that they don't work on projects in their spare time. They do, but they're not part of open source culture, where people share things by default. They're satisfied with having made the thing itself, and they're not going to put their hardware or software project on github any sooner than they're going to make a website for the house they built from scratch.
If you work at an open source shop and hire with this attitude, all you're going to do is make sure that you have a monoculture in this dimension. That's not the worst thing in the world, but it filters out people who don't particularly care about open source, which is the majority of programmers. If that's a moral imperative for you, I don't have any objection to that. Otherwise, I don't see why you'd want to do this.
Re: Pronking for Programmers
#9I don't think it has to be open-source... you just need to release things.
And what's a great motivator for releasing things when working alone? It's having other people expect you to make progress on your projects. That's why I made a club that meets weekly to screenshare what we're working on.
It's the benefits of YCombinator weekly dinners, without the benefit of awesome speakers, great advice, or mentorship. But I'm there! If you want to get feedback on your projects and give feedback on other people's projects, then you should join my club.
Re: Pronking for Programmers
#10"Hiring is so hard, so burn your free time to help me!" Please don't contribute to OSS unless you really want to. It's great if you do. But making it a near-mandatory requirement just means that it drives yet more self-promotion (it isn't a real project unless you buy a domain!), more low quality contributions, and, ultimately, becomes yet another thing-you-really-should-be-doing.
It doesn't have to be contributing to existing open source projects. I always find it a bit surprising when other programmers have no code to show on Github or similar, for this reason: 1. most people who use computers day in, day out, encounter a pain point or two with the tools they use; 2. as a programmer, it seems natural to fix that pain point; 3. once fixed, it seems natural to share the fix, so that others are helped too (and that can also help post-hoc justify/rationalise the investment of time!).