Hello All,
TLDR:
I would like to contribute to an Open Source project but don’t know where to start. Do you know any cool project that need help and have an “easy” codebase?
Long Version:
I am Coding for about 4 years now and did quite a few hobby-project on my own now. I would really like to step into some OpenSource Project for a few reasons:
- I hope to learn from others on that way. See how other devs write code or maybe improve mine or something along these lines.
- More users than on private projects. If I do a project on my own, no one ever finds it. And it would be really great to see my code “in action”.
- Giving back to the community. I am using a lot of Open Source Software and would like to support the community that way.
My Problem is, I don’t know where to start. There are so many repos on GitHub/GitLab that it is hard to find something with potential, that doesn’t have a few hundred PRs waiting because there are already to many people working on it. Or Maybe I am just searching wrong. If that is the case, please give me a hint :D My skill-level is somewhere in the middle. Not terrible, but not a pro either. Because of that I would probably focus on smaller issues to get started. But I always strive to improve and get better.
My preferred languages are Python, Go or Javascript.
If anyone of you know a not to complex but cool project, that needs support, let me know.
I am happy about any feedback.
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When you say you like Javascript, do you like web frontend dev? If so, you could try contributing to lemmy UI - could be pretty rewarding to see your work being deployed on the instance you use!
I did some projects in React and Vue. I see Lemmy is using inferno. I don’t know that one yet, but I will look into it. Thank you for the hint.
There is a new SvelteKit JavaScript project for a lemmy-ui alternative: https://lemmy.world/comment/258368
Look at the community-browser then. They don’t support kbin yet.
I like looking for issues that are tagged as „good first issue“.
There are sites that make this even easier.
Look for projects that you think you might want to support in a language you know and help them out in those issues.
Oh that is great! Thats exactly what I was searching for. Thank you!
https://github.com/topics/good-first-issue
Any issue marked “good first issue” should be good for someone new to the project to tackle. The link I posted, the 2nd entry is a repo with docs on how to contribute to projects.
My best recommendation would be to find a project that is written in languages you’re familiar with and maybe even is on a subject you’re familiar with (e.g. data management, audio transformation, business logic, statistics, whatever) and just dive in.
Any chance you know more than one human language? Some projects need translators!
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That really depends on the language pair. Even a big language like Chinese has a lot of interesting stuff on github that never gets translated because the number of people can and are willing to translate isn’t that high.
English and German. And that is an interesting idea as well.
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It’s not as “glamorous” as coding often is seen as, but what almost every open source project needs is better documentation. It’s also something that can help you be productive as you’re learning a codebase.
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The most rewarding thing is contributing to some project you are using, helps keep it alive.
Honestly, just contribute to whatever software you’re already using! The most obvious example (that somebody else mentioned already) is Lemmy itself, but surely there are many other open source pieces of software that you use on a daily basis. If there’s something that annoys you, or think it could be improved… there you go.
At least, that’s how I got into programming.
For me, it was starting to use neovim that got me into open source. Because it has so many plugins, and authors are usually super thankful for contributions (most of them have day jobs and limited free time).
I wrote my own neovim plugin and I got like 10 people making contributions to it within a few months. It doesn’t sound like much but it actually feels really nice and fun.
But yeah, if you want python, it’s not the right start for you. Plugins are written in lua and it’s not as full featured as python. But much faster.
wait people still use lua?
There is nothing better for small footprint and amazing speed, unless you want to write C directly. Neovim has it integrated in it’s core, which means plugins are really fast.
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First check if anything you’re using is on github, accepts contributions and has some open issues that looks simple to solve, or if theres some new feature u want to propose, then follow their steps for contributing.
Don’t go looking for issues on stuff u don’t use or don’t plan to use, or at least some friend/family uses, it’ll feel like a chore and you will have to spend a lot of time figuring out how stuff is supposed to be used what anything does and why…
yq (“jq for yaml” written in go) seems like a cool project and the dev seemed like a nice (but busy) person when I implemented a feature for it. Maybe it could be a nice place to start.
kubernetes special interest groups
Lots of go, great community
If you’re into JavaScript, https://github.com/dynamoose/dynamoose is a project I maintain, and has a lot of great documentation, Slack channels, and more.
Although my attention on it goes in waves, it could for sure use more help. I’m also totally willing to help answer questions and point people in the right direction.
We currently have 80 open issues, 6 open PRs. 9 of those issues are marked as “good first issues” and 8 are marked as “help wanted”.
So there are for sure some easy jumping off points to get started. But I’m also always happy to answer questions and assist in anyway I can as well.
Beyond that, it’s all about diving into something. I found Dynamoose when it was much smaller, and just started with small contributions and built up from there. Following developers on social media, and following programming communities and newsletters can be helpful too.
