Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer
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Point 4 in this article:
10 tips for becoming a better programmer | TechRepublic
Want to develop your career as a programmer? Here are tips from the experts on how to get ahead in the tech field.
Given the shit that pollutes the OSS pool, I don't think it's a valid claim.
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I find that doing something different from my dayjob and using different tools and whatnot helps me learn more things I can use at my dayjob. So yeah, doing little shit OSS projects actually helps. The article doesn't seem to be claiming it's magic here.
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@yamikuronue True, but the article is painting contributing to OSS as somehow better than closed-source. Or at least, that's how I interpret it.
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@raceprouk It's hard to contribute to closed source software as a spare time hobby
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@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
that's how I interpret it.
I think this is mostly in your head. The article is vague and short, so there's not a lot going on in that heading:
When you contribute to the open source community, it will empower you, Tejada said. "When you contribute to a project, pay attention to the feedback you get from users and other developers," he added. "When you give to the community, make sure you take advantage of the opportunity to receive as well."
In other words, working with people makes you learn and grow, especially if you solicit and act on feedback.
Recognize how important it is to interact with your professional community, but also think long and hard about what you want your role to be, said Charlie Robbins, director of engineering at GoDaddy and former member of the board of the Node.js Foundation. "Rather than chasing the notoriety of a 'superstar' developer, make sure you're speaking at conferences, writing blog posts, and engaging in mentorship projects that you actually feel passionate about," Robbins said. "Exchanging ideas and learning new things from your community can help avoid burnout, but only if you're approaching it in a genuine way."
All of which is actually nothing to do with contributing to open-source, more to do with giving back to the professional community. The author clearly is biased to believe that joining an OSS group is the best way to interact with the community, but I'm not sure he's wrong per se? And any way you go about it, it's an important professional development skill for programmers at or above a certain level to get outside their bubble and talk to people. It's the same as how conferences are key for pretty much all professions, with the added bonus of it being really easy to experiment with new things in our industry safely.
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You can replace the entire article with "do stuff related to programming". Which is true enough.
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@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@yamikuronue True, but the article is painting contributing to OSS as somehow better than closed-source. Or at least, that's how I interpret it.
How would you even contribute to closed source software?
I guess... you could get another job?
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@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
You can replace the entire article with "do stuff related to programming". Which is true enough.
Plus soft skills and mentoring.
You can generalize further: "To be good at a job, do things related to that job a lot, and also work on soft skills and find a mentor." And it's still true :)
I kind of assume articles like this are written for people who have no idea how to go about doing the above
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@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@yamikuronue True, but the article is painting contributing to OSS as somehow better than closed-source. Or at least, that's how I interpret it.
How would you even contribute to closed source software?
I guess... you could get another job?
You could do it solo, and not release the code to anyone. But you won't learn as much.
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@yamikuronue said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
The author clearly is biased to believe that joining an OSS group is the best way to interact with the community, but I'm not sure he's wrong per se?
Granted, the fundamental point is sound: the more projects you contribute to and the more groups you interact with, the better you will get. But to paint OSS as the only option is a bit short-sighted.
@jaloopa said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk It's hard to contribute to closed source software as a spare time hobby
But not impossible :P
@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@yamikuronue True, but the article is painting contributing to OSS as somehow better than closed-source. Or at least, that's how I interpret it.
How would you even contribute to closed source software?
I guess... you could get another job?
Or see if there's a closed-source hobby project you can join. Admittedly, there's far fewer community closed-source projects than OSS, and they're harder to get into, but they do exist.
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@yamikuronue said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
I kind of assume articles like this are written for people who have no idea how to go about doing the above
That's pretty standard for TechRepublic.
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@yamikuronue said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
I kind of assume articles like this are written for people who have no idea how to go about doing the above
They are written because one of the usual bullet points on "how to be good developer" checklists is "write blog articles", and you can easily blast this crap out without too much effort and research.
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@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Or see if there's a closed-source hobby project you can join. Admittedly, there's far fewer community closed-source projects than OSS, and they're harder to get into, but they do exist.
Wow, really?
How would that even work? Wouldn't you have to know the person who owns the product, so they can agree to let you in?
Also, most closed source products are such because the author intends to commercialize them at some point. If that happens, is there expectation you'd get a cut? And wouldn't that make you more of a business partner or an employee than mere "contributor"?
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@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Wow, really?
Yep. In my experience, they're usually fangames.
@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
How would that even work? Wouldn't you have to know the person who owns the product, so they can agree to let you in?
Or be part of a community where such projects are discussed, and even then, there's probably a whole process to join them.
@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Also, most closed source products are such because the author intends to commercialize them at some point. If that happens, is there expectation you'd get a cut? And wouldn't that make you more of a business partner or an employee than mere "contributor"?
I can't really answer these for certain, as I've never tried to get in on one of these projects, and any that I'm interested in are in a community with a retardedly strict membership approval process, one I'd likely fail right from the start because I once dared direct valid criticism at a member they practically worship. But I guess the answer is you handle that stuff when it becomes relevant.
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Is it me, or there are more and more stupid articles like that recently?
Let's see...
- Hone your soft skills
"Being a dick to coworkers may harm your career". Insightful!
- Code the real world, and code frequently
"Do your job"
- Be language agnostic
To some extent, yes. But taking this kind of thinking too far is what made me change jobs recently.
- Contribute to the open source community
"Learn the worst habits and discover how to hate the user". No.
- Join a local user group or mentorship program
"Form a circlejerk with others like you, to further confirm to yourself that you're great". No.
- Work on a side project
Why not. Just don't publish it. Ever.
- Develop a specialty
"Be good at something". Insightful!
- Take code review seriously
"Do your job"
- Learn more about the business side
"Do your job"
- Read voraciously
No. Books about programming are a waste of time. The good ones, bad ones are harmful.
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@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Wouldn't you have to know the person who owns the product, so they can agree to let you in?
The first rule of closed source club: you do not talk about closed source club
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@mrl said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Be language agnostic
@mrl said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Develop a specialty
But not in a particular language
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@yamikuronue said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
You could do it solo, and not release the code to anyone. But you won't learn as much.
That's kind of what I did in the beginning, and I learned a lot doing that.
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@jaloopa said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@mrl said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Be language agnostic
@mrl said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Develop a specialty
But not in a particular language
Yeah, I'm not sure what they mean by language agnostic. Knowing your way around different technologies is good, but jumping from language to language or being tossed from one programming environment to another constantly is bad.
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@mrl said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Is it me, or there are more and more stupid articles like that recently?
Let's see...Hone your soft skills
"Being a dick to coworkers may harm your career". Insightful!
The IT industry, in miniature.
(Seriously, there's a lot more to soft skills than basic politeness.)
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@mrl said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
I'm not sure what they mean by language agnostic
You can be a strong language agnostic, where you don't believe it's possible to know whether a language exists or not, or a weak language agnostic, where it's possible to know but we don't yet.
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@yamikuronue said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@yamikuronue True, but the article is painting contributing to OSS as somehow better than closed-source. Or at least, that's how I interpret it.
How would you even contribute to closed source software?
I guess... you could get another job?
You could do it solo, and not release the code to anyone. But you won't learn as much.
You can do a small team project too. I do a few of those on the side right now...
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@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Given the shit that pollutes the OSS pool, I don't think it's a valid claim.
I don't follow your logic. Personally, contributing to OSS has been a massive source of self improvement. I'm certain we could find counter examples for every point, which doesn't invalidate them.
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@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
How would you even contribute to closed source software?
I do it all the time. I just write shit and don't show it to people.
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@yamikuronue said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
You could do it solo, and not release the code to anyone. But you won't learn as much.
Or do open source and you learn all kinds of stuff, but it's all the wrong stuff and you end up creating shitty software that's terrible. What a great choice.
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@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
But to paint OSS as the only option is a bit short-sighted.
I think this is still in your head, like you're trying to channel blakey or something.
@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Or see if there's a closed-source hobby project you can join. Admittedly, there's far fewer community closed-source projects than OSS, and they're harder to get into, but they do exist.
You're trying reeeeaaaaallllly hard to object to this. Way too hard.
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@jaloopa said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk It's hard to contribute to closed source software as a spare time hobby
Why, I was a contributor to a local gaming group like 10+ years ago.
Even though we don't release the source, the sole act of creating something for others to enjoy give us pleasure.
The important part is to release something that somebody actually use. Whether you choose to open source it is not important at all.
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@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@yamikuronue True, but the article is painting contributing to OSS as somehow better than closed-source. Or at least, that's how I interpret it.
How would you even contribute to closed source software?
I guess... you could get another job?
There was a number of closed source hobby group when I was studying higher diploma in university.
I remember there was a
flamewarheated debate on whether an opensourse or another closed-source BBS station performs better. (The closed source one was also maintained by a hobby group)
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@wharrgarbl said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
That's kind of what I did in the beginning, and I learned a lot doing that.
Me too. I also learned a lot.
But I'd have learned so much more if I wasn't so isolated.
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@cartman82 The issue isn't "are you learning a lot", the issue is, "are you learning from the idiots who think Git is a pretty good piece of software".
Because those people, who BTW could not be more open source-y, have absolutely no clue what they're doing. Learning from them is not a good thing. "Yeah, I'm learning a lot about phrenology, this is going to be so useful in my career!"
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@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@yamikuronue said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
The author clearly is biased to believe that joining an OSS group is the best way to interact with the community, but I'm not sure he's wrong per se?
Granted, the fundamental point is sound: the more projects you contribute to and the more groups you interact with, the better you will get. But to paint OSS as the only option is a bit short-sighted.
@jaloopa said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk It's hard to contribute to closed source software as a spare time hobby
But not impossible :P
@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@yamikuronue True, but the article is painting contributing to OSS as somehow better than closed-source. Or at least, that's how I interpret it.
How would you even contribute to closed source software?
I guess... you could get another job?
Or see if there's a closed-source hobby project you can join. Admittedly, there's far fewer community closed-source projects than OSS, and they're harder to get into, but they do exist.
You are grasping at straws in an attempt to not be wrong.
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@polygeekery You clearly aren't aware of just how large the fangame community in general is.
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@raceprouk how many zeroes after the decimal place do you need before you can express the fraction of size it is compared to the open-source community?
Plus, your own post invalidated your point.
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@blakeyrat said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Because those people, who BTW could not be more open source-y, have absolutely no clue what they're doing. Learning from them is not a good thing. "Yeah, I'm learning a lot about phrenology, this is going to be so useful in my career!"
None of that is specific to open source software. Closed source is just as much of a cesspool. Someone who learnt their trade at any of the companies that have made it to the front page here would acquire some horrible habits. Potentially, open source projects are open to a wider pool input, so there's more chance that some of the weirder anti-patterns might be picked up on and criticised.
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@polygeekery A community can be large, yet still be a lot smaller than another community.
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@raceprouk let me know when you run out of straws.
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@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
How would that even work? Wouldn't you have to know the person who owns the product, so they can agree to let you in?
For closed source workgroups on gaming, they do recruit new students to join them each year. The game engine source is considered owned by the workgroup itself, not by individual member or even the leader of the time.
Also, most closed source products are such because the author intends to commercialize them at some point. If that happens, is there expectation you'd get a cut? And wouldn't that make you more of a business partner or an employee than mere "contributor"?
While I'd say the actual percentage of "commercialize" is more likely 50/50 and there are also lots of them enjoys "status quo" or even become opensourced, this happened a few times. When they want the software become commercialized, they usually need to hold a meeting and invite the ex-contributors as well, then vote. If over half of the attending members/ex-members disagrees, it will not go commercialize. There were one or two occasion there they just commercialize the creation, but eventually fails to generate revenue because of bad name spread within the communities and some ex-contributor decided to share the compiled copy of their software for free.
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@boomzilla said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Given the shit that pollutes the OSS pool, I don't think it's a valid claim.
I don't follow your logic. Personally, contributing to OSS has been a massive source of self improvement. I'm certain we could find counter examples for every point, which doesn't invalidate them.
I'd say, if your OSS project does not attract anyone to review and collaborate with you, you don't gain experience much better than working alone on closed source projects.
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@japonicus said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Potentially, open source projects are open to a wider pool input, so there's more chance that some of the weirder anti-patterns might be picked up on and criticised.
Right; that explains why Git is so high quality.
The problem isn't lack of criticism, there's been plenty. I even linked to an essay by one of the original developers who talked about all the mistakes they made. The problem is: they don't give even a third of a shit about actually fixing anything. The lesson "fuck your users, ignore their input, serve them up fried shit" is not one you want people learning.
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@polygeekery said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk how many zeroes after the decimal place do you need before you can express the fraction of size it is compared to the open-source community?
Plus, your own post invalidated your point.
From what I learnt, there was at least one closed-source gaming community in each university (remember, at that time opensource was not even a thing. Not redistributing the source code is the norm at that time), and I think there is no good reason to suddenly release the source code of something that used to be closed source without gaining the permission or at least informing them. So if you merely want to count on "number of communities", I think the number is not going to be a lot smaller than opensource ones.
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@blakeyrat said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@japonicus said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
Potentially, open source projects are open to a wider pool input, so there's more chance that some of the weirder anti-patterns might be picked up on and criticised.
Right; that explains why Git is so high quality.
The problem isn't lack of criticism, there's been plenty. I even linked to an essay by one of the original developers who talked about all the mistakes they made. The problem is: they don't give even a third of a shit about actually fixing anything. The lesson "fuck your users, ignore their input, serve them up fried shit" is not one you want people learning.
Yeah, so does Chromium and Android project. There are a number of bugs keep closing by moderators each year and have to be reopened by users.
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@blakeyrat said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@cartman82 The issue isn't "are you learning a lot", the issue is, "are you learning from the idiots who think Git is a pretty good piece of software".
Because those people, who BTW could not be more open source-y, have absolutely no clue what they're doing. Learning from them is not a good thing. "Yeah, I'm learning a lot about phrenology, this is going to be so useful in my career!"As usual, you are generalizing too much.
There's plenty of crap OSS code flying around, but also a lot that I can barely wrap my mind around.
I am not much of an OSS contributor (prefer to go blazing my own way), but if I could get myself to get into some of these large OSS projects (eg. react, C#), there'd be a lot to learn from them.
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@cheong said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
There are a number of bugs keep closing by moderators each year and have to be reopened by users.
Those lucky bastards. My bugs to Chrome were just ignored for years and years, nobody even read them much less triaged them.
Hell, I think one's still open. (I closed one because they fixed it-- the guy who fixed it never bothered to file a bug or find an open one with the issue, he just cowboy-coded it fixed. Again: what a great learning experience open source is.)
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@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@polygeekery You clearly aren't aware of just how large the fangame community in general is.
This is the first time I think I have ever heard of it. I still don't know what it is, though I suppose I could guess. Which perhaps says something about how big it isn't.
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@cheong said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@polygeekery said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk how many zeroes after the decimal place do you need before you can express the fraction of size it is compared to the open-source community?
Plus, your own post invalidated your point.
From what I learnt, there was at least one closed-source gaming community in each university (remember, at that time opensource was not even a thing. Not redistributing the source code is the norm at that time), and I think there is no good reason to suddenly release the source code of something that used to be closed source without gaining the permission or at least informing them. So if you merely want to count on "number of communities", I think the number is not going to be a lot smaller than opensource ones.
And in more modern times, there are communities like SFGHQ, where there are often dozens of projects being pursued by members, sometimes solo, sometimes in teams. The communities are big enough that they even hold semi-regular online expos to show off their products e.g. SAGE and NCFC. And then above that, you have more general sites like Sonic Retro, where a significant portion of the community are makers of fangames. And that's just the stuff I know about.
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@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
As usual, you are generalizing too much.
If you show me a Lenovo Carbon X1 laptop, and it's shitty, I'm going to say Lenovo Carbon X1 laptops are shitty.
If you show me an open source project, and it's shitty, I'm going to say open source projects are shitty.
If the problem is branding, that's still their problem.
@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
There's plenty of crap OSS code flying around, but also a lot that I can barely wrap my mind around.
Because it's crap, or...?
Are you implying that seeing code you can "barely wrap your mind around" is a good thing, or what's the message here? Because unreadable code is awful, and if that's what you're learning from, you're learning awful code.
@cartman82 said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
I am not much of an OSS contributor (prefer to go blazing my own way), but if I could get myself to get into some of these large OSS projects (eg. react, C#), there'd be a lot to learn from them.
Right; you could become an expert at how to ignore user feedback and treat them like shit. You can get a PhD in never QAing any changes ever. Great; just what the software industry needs.
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@blakeyrat said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
The issue isn't "are you learning a lot", the issue is, "are you learning from the idiots who think Git is a pretty good piece of software".
Ah, this would explain it, then. We used
svnand thenhg.
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@blakeyrat said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@cheong said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
There are a number of bugs keep closing by moderators each year and have to be reopened by users.
Those lucky bastards. My bugs to Chrome were just ignored for years and years, nobody even read them much less triaged them.
Hell, I think one's still open. (I closed one because they fixed it-- the guy who fixed it never bothered to file a bug or find an open one with the issue, he just cowboy-coded it fixed. Again: what a great learning experience open source is.)
Yup. From what I observed, participate in opensource project don't always gain the kind of benefit people keep saying and expect them exists. It's more about how many people (especially those experienced ones) your project attracted, and what kind of collaborators your project attracted (those experienced one who actually cares about OSS often already have projects on hand. While they may leave comments on project they're interested, they may not choose to become a contributor on the project).
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@blakeyrat said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
The problem isn't lack of criticism, there's been plenty. I even linked to an essay by one of the original developers who talked about all the mistakes they made. The problem is: they don't give even a third of a shit about actually fixing anything. The lesson "fuck your users, ignore their input, serve them up fried shit" is not one you want people learning.
Or more likely, they have different priorities and goals than you.
For example, you might think git authors should work on GUI or better support for less experienced users, but they might decide they'd rather optimize the core or add more pro-level features.
And that's perfectly fine. It's their time. They are free to spend it however they see fit.
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@boomzilla said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@raceprouk said in Apparently, contributing to OSS will make you a great developer:
@polygeekery You clearly aren't aware of just how large the fangame community in general is.
This is the first time I think I have ever heard of it. I still don't know what it is, though I suppose I could guess. Which perhaps says something about how big it isn't.
Compared to the OSS community as a whole, it's not big at all. But size is relative.
