

Ask HN: Finding an OSS programming community? - heresy

I used to work on an OSS project I know a lot of you use, though it was in the bowels and not that sexy, don't want to overstate my contributions here.<p>I enjoyed the community aspect of it immensely, but work and other things slowly chipped away at my available time until it got to the point where I was no longer able to maintain my level of contribution, and at the end of the day I'd end up collapsing and vegetating, programming being the last thing I wanted to do.<p>Sanity has since returned, I'm working at a place that treats me well, and I have a decent balance of work to free time.<p>I know I have the capability to make good contributions to an OSS project.<p>I can hack C, pretty familiar with Ruby, Python, C#, etc. If I find some annoying bug on my Ubuntu box, I can and have tracked down what it is in the source, create a patch to fix it, and so on (used to be a Debian developer). I like to think I have a small amount of good taste, after several iterations of refactoring, though usually coming back after 6 months I think it's shit ;)<p>I'm sort of casting about for a project...A problem I'm having is just starting something. Programmmer's block, if you will.<p>I'm finding it tough going not having people to bounce ideas off or talk about tech with though. I actually think this is my biggest problem. I've been in the "wilderness" for the past 2-3 years.<p>New Zealand is tiny, and rather Microsoft-centric, which unfortunately sometimes means not much of an interest outside of what Redmond provides.<p>I like plumbing, infrastructure, networking, understanding how things fit together. Virtually everything interests me (perhaps that is a problem?).<p>My reading queue, to give you an idea of my interests:<p>* Beautiful Data<p>* 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know<p>* Learning iPhone Programming<p>* Hello, Android<p>* Programming Clojure<p>* C# in Depth (when it's released)<p>So, HN:<p>Project Suggestions?<p>Has anyone else returned from a sojourn in the wilderness?<p>How did you do it?<p>How did you get back into the thick of it?<p>What got your juices going?<p>Are you hiring? ;)
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philh
I stopped paying attention to Clojure some time ago. But I would guess it's
still in a state where you could easily find something to do.

Note, you have to sign a contributor agreement (and post it to the US). I
didn't like that idea, so I went elsewhere. But if you're okay with it, it
might be worth doing.

edit to clarify: The CA is only if you want to work on clojure itself, or on
the 'contrib' library (which is maintained separately, with the intention that
bits of it can be imported into core). Obviously you can write your own
libraries and release them, they just won't get distributed with the language.

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Ixiaus
I can relate; I've been a lone wolf for quite sometime - I'm a bit of a social
anomaly in that I don't "fit" into _any_ one cultural category. I don't
separate my life into "personal" and "professional" therefore I have (for the
most part) just one persona most people see.

Note: I am about to give you a rather long preface with a lot of personal
detail to give you an accurate picture of "where I am" so that my answer to
your question can make more sense and (hopefully) be helpful!

I dance for a Salsa team, I sail, I've been on a number of survival trips, I'm
an avid snowboarder, I lived and worked on a commune for six months (this was
a life changing experience), I backpacked through India on a low budget for
two months, I love Dubstep and the electronic music scene, and I consider
myself a _rogue_ intellectual.

Did I mention I grew up on a 6 thousand acre working ranch?

I dropped out of highschool in my senior year, got my GED, and tried "college"
twice. I dropped out twice. Around that time I chose to move out and live on
the commune I mentioned earlier. There were only three of us but we were
active: building structures, digging trenches with a Backhoe, rebuilding the
foundation of a 100 year old house, clearing forest, and building a 100% off-
grid solution complete with solar panels and composting toilets.

The man that was the accepted foreman for the project was (still is) an
amazing friend and teacher to me. He was first and foremost, a powerful
intellect; he was also skilled in any number of blue-collar activities. He was
the man that ironed into my head that college is not necessary, that one can
instruct themselves on _anything_. He sparked my interest in programming,
psychology, metaphysics, physics, mathematics, logic (as the topic), personal
development, introspection, and a _long_ list of other intellectual subject
areas.

He taught me that there is never a crowd on the leading edge.

I've had a self-compiled curriculum for the last six years of my life since
then. I am an autodidact in every sense; I've read Ovid's Metamorphoses and
critically interpreted it using what I learned from Jungian Psychology (I
don't read passively); I taught myself PHP, then Python, then Erlang, then
Scheme, then Objective-C, and others. I've pursued Mathematics with a
passionate heart (whereas in Highschool I loathed the subject), I read books
on computer science, books on logic and formal reasoning, books on how to
write eloquently (don't use this comment as an example though!), and outlier
books that make modern day physics look like a jumbled mess.

Presently (since it is an American tradition) I make my money from independent
contracting; but, I started out waiting tables. I then moved on to building my
mom's website, to programming for an entertainment company (at $10.00 per
hour), to developing for a large startup (bit of an oxymoron I know, but
that's why they don't exist anymore), and a string other 9-to-5 jobs.

 _Note: this part may be of interest to you, as it pertains more to your
question._

I got sick of 9-to-5 and decided to quit the working world so that I could
focus more on my self-education and personal projects. This lead me to an
eight month stint in which I did _only_ that. I paid for things with passive
income and lived a slim life style. Until I decided to take up contracting
work and to work for myself (it's been great ever since). I also had been
working on an open-source project for the last two years as well.

This super long comment has (more or less) lead me to the present day me. I've
found solace in coworking spaces, my Salsa team, hacker meetups, and my online
friends. I still have yet to find an actual cluster of intellectually deep and
potent people (hackers, you could say).

My present idea has been what I call "The Enclave" as a sort of hackerspace
for thinkers _and_ builders to come together. A place where these people can
interact without the disturbance of "Normals" (most fringe intellectuals have
quirky personalities and strange interests), a place where they are not just
"accepted" but "allowed" to be what they are, a place in which deep
collaboration can occur on topics ranging from the technical to cooking and
gardening to philosophy or pseudoscience.

This is how I get my juices flowing, not by just working on OSS or working (I
do all of that), not just by starting my own little pet software project (I do
that too), but by dreaming of how we might solidify the etheric space most
individuated people interact in (the internet, online spaces, etc...). Hope
that is at all interesting.

