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Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

#61

Post by afarrell »

click170 wrote: post #52
joe_the_user wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it turns out it is a hard community to work with then fork it or move on to your next itch. Some people might unlimited energy to program and infinitely thick skin. I think a lot of people find putting energy into a project that rejects their efforts to be somewhat traumatic and something that can impel them to give up rather than bounding on to this next adventure. I agree that getting involved with a project tha…

I think this is a bit of a non issue. Wouldn't a bad community or developer become evident when you started looking around at how to help and contribute to the project? Just recently I decided I was bored with my routine at home and wanted to challenge myself. So I set a task: pick a public repo that I don't already maintain (preferably that I use), find a bug I would like to see fixed (emphasis on would like to see…

When you are just starting out, you don't know what is normal and you can't tell whether the project is poorly run or whether you are just bad at programming and should give up.

Re: Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

#62

Post by afarrell »

beachstartup wrote: post #58
joe_the_user wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is seriously not true. I've had experiences of projects I tried to get involved because I liked the software but where the maintainer had zero interest in involving any new people. It's lovely that developers scratch itches and create cool software - there isn't anything that implies those same people want to work with other new people. I'm glad you had a good experience and maybe I was unlucky or whatever but I…

the simple solution is to email the maintainer and ask if they're accepting contributions before you start working on things.

This is a good idea, but be sure to clarify that you are a beginner and are looking for mentorship. Otherwise you might get a response that contributions are welcome, but no guidance.

Re: Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

#63

Post by brlcad »

ksenzee wrote: post #53

I would look at the list of projects Google has accepted for Google Summer of Code ( https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org/list/public/google/g... ). They should all be mature enough to have established protocols for newcomers, and with luck they'll be friendly enough for you to feel welcome. (Drupal is on that list, and as a contributor I can certainly vouch for it in both those areas.)

Even better, I would recommend looking at the Google Code-In organizations. Those communities are specifically set up to deal with new inexperienced contributors whereas many GSoC orgs simply are not: https://www.google-melange.com/gci/org/list/public/google/gc...

The GCI orgs all have loads of tiny tasks spelled out that can be completed in less than a day too.

Re: Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

#64

Post by joe_the_user »

click170 wrote: post #52
joe_the_user wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it turns out it is a hard community to work with then fork it or move on to your next itch. Some people might unlimited energy to program and infinitely thick skin. I think a lot of people find putting energy into a project that rejects their efforts to be somewhat traumatic and something that can impel them to give up rather than bounding on to this next adventure. I agree that getting involved with a project tha…

I think this is a bit of a non issue. Wouldn't a bad community or developer become evident when you started looking around at how to help and contribute to the project? Just recently I decided I was bored with my routine at home and wanted to challenge myself. So I set a task: pick a public repo that I don't already maintain (preferably that I use), find a bug I would like to see fixed (emphasis on would like to see…

Your level of energy for programming does sound pretty impressive compared to mine. I will admit that if everyone else has energy to churn out patches willi-nilli, worries about whether they would get pushed would not be a non-issue. I'm not so sure that's true, however.

Re: Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

#65

Post by gorkemcetin »

I'd suggest projects based on Javascript or a similar easy to learn language, which lowers down the barrier to entry. You may want to check Countly (http://github.com/countly/countly-server), a mobile analytics and push notifications platform.

Re: Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

#66

Post by afarrell »

joe_the_user wrote: post #35
ridiculous_fish wrote: post #16

The answer is "all of them!" ESR wrote "Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch." You'll be much more effective working on a program that you use and want to make better, compared to a beginner-friendly project that you have no interest in. Instead of looking externally for projects, look inwards. Think about the software you already use, and how it could be better: that stupid an…

This is seriously not true. I've had experiences of projects I tried to get involved because I liked the software but where the maintainer had zero interest in involving any new people. It's lovely that developers scratch itches and create cool software - there isn't anything that implies those same people want to work with other new people. I'm glad you had a good experience and maybe I was unlucky or whatever but I…

A problem is that for many projects, the maintainers don't bear any cost when someone new tries to join a project, invests a bunch of time+effort and ends up nowhere. Therefore, even if they really don't have time, energy, or inclination to spend time mentoring, they can just say "welcome to the team" and toss the new member into an ocean of code to sink or swim. Some will in fact swim. Conversely, if they do spend a bunch of time on detailed mentorship, the new contributor doesn't have to stay

Another problem is that

Re: Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

#67

Post by brlcad »

The open source projects that participate in Google Code-In (GCI) cater to beginners with little to no experience: https://www.google-melange.com/gci/org/list/public/google/gc...

For GCI, they have to maintain lists of tiny tasks that can be completed in just a few hours. You don't have to be participating in GCI to work on those tasks. They will also have people in their community interested in helping you.

Source: I'm the admin for one of the GCI orgs.

Re: Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

#68

Post by workonononon »

honest_joe wrote: post #25
workonononon wrote: post #7

http://www.freesbd.org/ A fun open source operating system. Some C knowledge required.

You say some C knowledge required when we are talking about a complicated UNIX kernel. right..."some"knowledge is really required...

There is a userspace too, if you find kernels scary. In reality though, the kernel is simpler than userspace in some ways.

The website could also use work. That's HTML/JS, you don't need kernel or C experience.

Re: Ask HN: What are some open source projects that a beginner can work on?

#69

Post by jgraham »

eatitraw wrote: post #5

I have an online friend who contributes to firefox. They are fairly beginner-friendly, though you probably need to have some C++ skills. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/

You absolutely don't need C++ skills to contribute to Mozilla. They are of course required to contribute to gecko, but that's only one possible contribution option. Others are:

* Firefox UI and devtools. Written in a combination of js, HTML and XUL, with some C++ in the backend.

* Automation and tools. Mostly Python-based, this is the infrastructure used to test Firefox and related projects.

* Servo. The next-generation browser engine being written in Rust.

* Gaia UI. The Firefox OS interface and associated apps. All written in JS + HTML.

* Firefox for Android UI. Written in Java like other android apps.

* Various web tools. Typically written in HTML + JS + Python, but backends differ (there's an increasing amount of node.js, Bugzilla is in Perl, etc.)

* QA and testing. Writing testcases for the web platform and other browser features. Typically requires HTML and JS skills, and well as the ability (for Platform tests at least) to read specifications.

* MDN. Documentation of Mozilla projects and the Web platform. Requires writing (not necessarily in English!) and good technical understanding.

That's just off the top of my head, I'm sure that there are a bunch more projects someone will be annoyed I've missed ;) There's a more detailed list of the projects by technology at [1].

I like to believe that Mozilla is quite good at welcoming new contributors; it's certainly something we work at, although there are of course always opportunities to improve. There's a page of getting-started tutorials at [2], a database of bugs with assigned mentors grouped by technology at [3], and a dedicated irc channel #introduction on irc.mozilla.org.

It is true that not every Mozilla project uses a familiar GitHub workflow, but it true that many recent projects do. For example Servo and Gaia are both fully GitHub-centric. For the more aged projects using Mercurial, we are in the process of moving from a patch-based workflow to a more modern branch-based one, with review in ReviewBoard. So there is still a learning curve there, but it's at least getting better.

And finally — because this is my own special interest — if you are tired of web browsers having troublesome incompatibilities and want to be part of the solution, consider contributing to the open-source web-platform-tests testsuite at the W3C [4], [5]. This is a expanding repository of tests covering the open web that are being run against every single commit to Gecko (and Servo!) so that the developers are aware of implementation errors before they become interoperability issues.

[1] http://www.whatcanidoformozilla.org/

[2] http://codefirefox.com/

[3] http://www.joshmatthews.net/bugsahoy/

[4] https://github.com/w3c/web-platform-tests

[5] http://testthewebforward.org

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