how to get into open source projects

jobless

has anyone any advice on how as a relative newcomer to a language learn more by participating in open source projects? im trying to get better at JavaScript but don't use it in my current job so was hoping maybe doing some open source would be an option... anyone tried this before?

L.Jenkins

Try Github. Have a look at the projects available to contribute.

jobless

Itzy wrote: »

Try Github. Have a look at the projects available to contribute.

how do you find projects available to contribute though?

L.Jenkins

You can search by language.

jester77

Easiest would be to search for a lib that you use regularly, think of something that is missing or could be improved, fork the project and have a go at implementing your ideas. If you just pick some random project for the sake of it, chances are you won't know how it works or is intended to work and you will quickly lose interest.

jobless

jester77 wrote: »

Easiest would be to search for a lib that you use regularly, think of something that is missing or could be improved, fork the project and have a go at implementing your ideas. If you just pick some random project for the sake of it, chances are you won't know how it works or is intended to work and you will quickly lose interest.

in my position though, i'm not using javascript at the moment and want to try learn more by doing.... im not using it at the moment where i work so want to keep practicing. I'm struggling to think of ways to do this though.
I guess im wondering are there open source projects there for people with limited experience..... how else do others learn?

PrzemoF

jobless wrote: »

how do you find projects available to contribute though?

Every single open source project that I sawis open to contribution. If you can write a patch that fixes a bug or if you can improve anything, a feature, documentation, whatever project admins will be happy to include your fixes. Obviously the fixes/improvments have to match project quality or you'll get a fedback about what's wrong. I always suggest the same thing: find an open source software that you use and contribute to it.

PrzemoF

jobless wrote: »

[..]
I guess im wondering are there open source projects there for people with limited experience..... how else do others learn?

Yes, all of them. If you submit a simple patch fixing something there is no way to tell if you have 20+ years of experience and think in C or it's your first patch ever if the patch is correct. I recently started to contribute to a project written in C++/python (I don't know C++ !!) and that is a comment that I received after submitting my first patch : "IMHO your patch does more harm than good". There was also a long list what's wrong with my patch. I read the comments and that was my first lesson on C++ on this project. That comment didn't stop me from working on the project and quite a few of my patches since then have been accepted.

Feel free to ask about any aspect of contributing to open source projects. I suggest to do it here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=520

Talisman

jobless wrote: »

has anyone any advice on how as a relative newcomer to a language learn more by participating in open source projects? im trying to get better at JavaScript but don't use it in my current job so was hoping maybe doing some open source would be an option... anyone tried this before?

How confident are you in your own ability? Not getting past the fear of not making a valuable contribution is what stops people from jumping in.

You could start by installing JSHint on your computer and running it against the files in a project. In the process of fixing the issues the tool reports you will learn good JavaScript coding and avoid making such errors in your own code. Developers are more likely to be receptive to cleaned up code than hacked fixes - having your updates accepted will give you more confidence.

When you feel you're ready and have the confidence in your own JavaScript coding ability you could start contributing your own fixes to projects.

croo

Another place (the biggest prior to github I think) to look for open source projects is SourceForge.net - though recently, they've been getting flak for bundling adware with their downloads! But it's still very active.

I would look for a project that interests you in ways other than it happens to be developed in the same language. Also before spending a lot of time do look at how active the project is, when was the last commit made? You don't want to invest a lot of time learning about a project that is dead. Once you've found something that interests you, sign up for any mailing lists, read their wiki, look for any development standards/conventions they follow. If you are just learning, something you could do is, look at recent commits for bug fixes then look for the original bug reports and see if and how you could fix the bug, now go back and look to the commit made to see how they addressed it.

Also, don't forget that many projects will be active on IRC - there you can meet others involved and perhaps collaborate with others. I guess google (+ & hangouts) is taking a lot of that IRC traffic these days but there are still armies of devs in IRC! It just depends on the project I guess.

jobless

some very useful advice here guys, thanks.... nice to hear how others got into it....

L.Jenkins

jobless wrote: »

some very useful advice here guys, thanks.... nice to hear how others got into it....

It gave me something to do when I was unemployed and looked good my CV. Showed perspective employers I wasn't sitting around on my áss at home doing nothing. Plus, there's been a few interesting projects available to contribute to.