Contributing to Open Source via Video Game

twilio.com

27 points·makaimc··3 comments

Are there any well known "starter" open source projects? By this I mean "projects who have a good reputation and good documentation which will help induct and develop the confidence, knowledge and skills of new contributors?".

We have lots of projects which are open to contributions and many which have very mature mechanisms for incorporating changes from a number of sources, however I can't think of any 'go-to' projects to recommend for the often asked question of "I'm new to programming/open source, where do I begin?".

In contrast, there seem to be an increasing number of communities and resources around getting people inducted and migrated to Linux, a multitude that are trying to "teach people to code" and plenty that will instill the virtues of FOSS, but not as many which are actively encouraging and coaching people to contribute to established projects.

Drupal Ladder[1] teaches people how to install git, install Drupal, review and revise patches, write tests, work on core issues, etc.

[1] http://drupalladder.org/

github.com/showcases/great-for-new-contributors

github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners

developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Introduction

If you are new to programming, you probably shouldn't dive into adding code to an established project that has a high quality bar. You should study the code, add documentation, and add tests.

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