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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?

#71

Post by geofft »

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…

> 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.

That's absolutely true, but, given that this is open-source, there's always the option of maintaining it yourself. Of course, for someone who's an absolute newcomer, it's better with a buddy.

Tell you what. I'm interested in projects in C or Python doing systems-y things and that can be compiled on Debian (think stuff in the space of GLib, NetworkManager, apt... but also anything tinier, obviously). If you find a maintainer who's wholly uninterested in adding people, you've got a new feature you want, and you want someone to work with, shoot me an email, I'll probably be up for helping out with it.

Chances are that the maintainer will be interested in the feature, just not in mentorship. And even if the maintainer is just antisocial, chances are maintainership will change, or the world at large will benefit from a fork, or the Linux distros will be willing to take your patches even if the original maintainer isn't.

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

#74

Post by markvdb »

thatsnotme wrote: post #26
MaxGabriel wrote: post #10

I strongly recommend trying to contribute to a project that you personally use. Once you've been using it for awhile, you'll be better equipped to make changes to it + you'll maybe find bugs that you can fix. While you're doing this, mark yourself as a watcher of the project on Github, that way you can see bug reports come in and maybe fix them. You can try to contribute to just any project someone here suggests, but…

I know C and also Javascript/jQuery/CSS/HTML and I want to work on a project, so as to apply what I've learnt into something that is actually useful.

I see a lot of good general advice, but not too many specific examples. Here's a very specific one...

If you want to do C and get an introduction to a bit of arm assembly, you may want to contribute a new model build to CHDK, the Canon Hack Developer Kit. There are always new models out that need support, like the Canon PowerShot Elph(US)/Ixus(EU) 160.

See http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Porting for some hints to get started.

The CHDK core devs are really friendly and often available on IRC and forums. That helps a lot.

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

#76

Post by heliodor »

If Python is your thing, I found the code for the Graphite software easy to browse through and understand. https://github.com/graphite-project

As a bonus, it's a tool that will come in handy for future projects, whether as a nice-to-have or as a core part.

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

#77

Post by indygreg2 »

k__ wrote: post #11
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/

I contributed to Firefox. The Mozilla guys are awesome. But if you are used to Github/PRs their Bugzilla/Hg-Patches workflow feels like going back in time... way back to the old days.

We know. One of those things that was established 10+ years ago and has a lot of built-up inertia keeping it going.

It's part of my job role at Mozilla to bring this process into modernity. We're getting there. Slowly. GitHub pull requests will be supported in some form. Hopefully by July.

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

#78

Post by joe_the_user »

afarrell wrote: post #66
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…

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…

Absolutely,

My point is not that every programmer should be welcomed with open arms by every project. There are go reasons for the projects themselves to be selective.

But that is not a reason for a would-be contributor to be unselective themselves. It's a reason for a contributor to also be selective and not just choose any project that suits their fancy. This is my point.

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

#79

Post by afarrell »

joe_the_user wrote: post #78
afarrell wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Absolutely, My point is not that every programmer should be welcomed with open arms by every project. There are go reasons for the projects themselves to be selective. But that is not a reason for a would-be contributor to be unselective themselves. It's a reason for a contributor to also be selective and not just choose any project that suits their fancy. This is my point.

I strongly agree with you. I think that selectivity should be explicit and that there are currently incentives for maintainers to merely implicitly and quietly be selective

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

#80

Post by eposner »

Anyone interested can reach out to us at Taiga.io, we've built an Open Source, Free agile project management tool. We were named lat year as one of 2014's top Open Source Tools by opensource.com (http://taiga.io) and our Github repo is here: https://github.com/taigaio.
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