
Figuring out how to contribute to open source - eaguyhn
https://jvns.ca/blog/2017/08/06/contributing-to-open-source/
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yorwba
The only part I disagree with is "close the PR if nobody replies". Open PRs
without a clear blocker are important indicators of project health. If a PR
stays open for a long time, it might mean that the maintainers have trouble
reviewing outside contributions, or aren't that interested in incorporating
them. If I see that in a project repo, I think twice about doing the work to
contribute when it might end up ignored.

~~~
Mazzen
Had a quick look at the article and this immediately caught my eye. Leave the
PR open! The maintainer might need a few more days to respond or might
eventually reconsider. Also do not forget about other developers interested in
the project. I've more than once merged PRs locally to profit from them before
they were merged. Last but not least, open PRs are a good health indicator, I
have to agree there.

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Zyst
Good post. For me what helped most is definitely to get into the habit of
reading more code.

It is not something I did all the time previously. But coming in with a goal
and then just reading code tends to help a lot, whereas I normally lean more
on my coworkers when getting familiar with a new codebase (where do we do X?)
simply getting into the habit of reading more code helped.

I think an important realization is that there is (hardly ever) a deadline.
You can take your time to get as comfortable as you wish with the code before
you start.

As a PS: I have seen this blog a few times, I gotta say I love the orange bars
around the post.

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chickenfries
> But a lot of open source projects have a mailing list / Slack / gitter / IRC
> channel for discussion. I haven’t really figured this out yet because the
> social norms are kind of unclear to me (there are often hundreds or
> thousands of people in the Kubernetes Slack channels and I don’t know almost
> any of them), but it seems like something I should figure out.

Glad to know I'm not the only person who is intimidated by talking in a large
open source chat room.

~~~
anewhnaccount2
In my experience, usually the worst that will happen is that you'll get
ignored. In that case, you can try making your question simpler or just go
back and try and figure it out on your own (possibly coming back with another
question later on). Usually, you're not really any worse off than if you don't
ask at all.

~~~
acdha
I think people worry that they'll hit one of the rare but bad outlier
responses. A good sign of project health are things like codes of conduct and
other social cues that this isn't tolerated in that community.

~~~
chickenfries
I think the thing that really intimidates me is not seeing other people asking
beginner level questions. If I see a channel for newbie questions or I see
that people are asking newbie questions I feel welcome. If I can't easily see
something like that I feel like I'm intruding in a chat for "real"
contributors.

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wolco
"code-reading is a muscle that maybe I don’t always exercise as much as I
could and so this was a good reminder of how far I can get without asking any
questions at all"

Always read the code before asking is good advice for people starting out.
Because when you are finished you'll have other questions.

