Some of you may be ready to move beyond just using open source code and are ready to hone your skills by contributing back to open source. How do you find a project to contribute to?
Exploring interesting repositories on GitHub comes into play when looking for a place to contribute. The only difference is that you’ll have to narrow your exploration down even more when looking for a place to contribute.
The first thing to ask yourself is what type of repository do you want to contribute to. Answering this question can help narrow and guide your search.
There are many valid reasons for contributing to open source. One or more of the following may apply:
» I want to get involved in OSS in general and learn how to contribute.
» I want to help improve a project that I use in my day-to-day work.
» I want to support a project that does good in the world.
» I want to expand my skills by working in a technology I don’t normally get to.
» I’m just bored and want to contribute to something cool.
No matter your reason for contributing to open source, a good place to start when approaching a new repository is to look for low-hanging fruit. Many repositories have some manner to indicate issues that would be great for first-time contributors. Often, they apply a label, such as help-wanted or up-for-grabs.
In fact, some websites scour issues labeled as such and make them searchable to those looking to get started with open source. The Up For Grabs website at https://up-for-grabs.net is one example.
The site has a search tool for filtering issues by project, label, and tag. Figure 9-7 shows an example where we’re looking at all projects that have a beginner label and are tagged with javascript.
Several repository results are displayed along with the label that matched the filter. Click the label for the repository result to see the specific issues for that repository with that label. Filtering issues is a good way to find a concrete issue to work on as a beginner.
A GitHub topic named help-wanted, which is at page, https://github.com/ topics/help-wanted, lists repositories that are looking for help. When you visit a project that needs help, visit the issues page to look for potential issues you can help with.
For example, Figure 9-8 shows the issue tracker for the Visual Studio Code open source project. At the top is a message that mentions the project’s contribution guidelines and a helpful tip to look for issues labeled help wanted or good first issue. Figure 9-8 shows the issues filtered by the good first issue label.
Source: Guthals Sarah, Haack Phil (2019), GitHub for Dummies, Wiley.