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:

  1. I hope to learn from others on that way. See how other devs write code or maybe improve mine or something along these lines.
  2. 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”.
  3. 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.

  • Lionir [he/him]@beehaw.orgEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    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!

  • psudo@beehaw.orgEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • feyo@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    I like looking for issues that are tagged as „good first issue“.

    There are sites that make this even easier.

    https://goodfirstissue.dev/

    Look for projects that you think you might want to support in a language you know and help them out in those issues.

  • elxeno@lemmy.oneEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    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…

  • gmg@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    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.