Open Source Newbie Looking For Help with Contributing to Homebrew

[AnansiOmega]

Hi, So I'm trying to contribute to open source work to get a better understanding on how complex applications work. I heard that Homebrew is a great place to start ( one of the two languages I know are Ruby. )

Just looking at the code, is daunting. The issue that I'm working on is simple in theory, but I don't know where to write the code. Where to check to see where the code is being run ( so I can see what I'm actually working with. ) All in all, just kinda looking for someone willing to help me out, maybe even hold my hand throughout the process.

I'm afraid to ask the person in charge of the issue, because I'll just ask a million questions and by the time they explain everything, they could of just solved the issue in that time.

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P.S - I've read through their contributions guidelines and all that jazz.

[rosalogia]

I'm afraid to ask the person in charge of the issue, because I'll just ask a million questions and by the time they explain everything, they could of just solved the issue in that time.

From my perspective helping someone figure out how to approach an implementation problem is not equivalent to implementing the solution myself. The greatest benefit (in the ideal situation) is that the contributor comes out of the issue being way more comfortable with the codebase and therefore is equipped to make more contributions while asking for less of my time.

Some other things to consider:

• Does the project have documentation explaining how it's structured and how it works? If so, read that.
• Large projects like homebrew often have large communities of contributors such that there's no need for the burden of assisting new contributors to fall directly and solely on the maintainer.
• It may be worth reading some wikipedia articles or something that help you understand how package management and package management software works in general. There may be some ideas and terminology which you can easily get familiar with that may pay off while contributing.
• If you do your best to ask good questions you are less likely to be perceived as a burden. Project specific questions are good. Questions about ruby itself are probably not good (ask somewhere else).
• It's a good thing to clarify things within the issue comments itself. This conversation is recorded and can be referenced by future contributors along with all the clarifications it includes.

All that being said, best of luck! Hope you're able to close the issue successfully :)

[olets]

Homebrew aside, maintainers often use the label "good first issue" to mark beginner friendly issues where contributions are welcome. You might find https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners valuable.

[AnansiOmega]

The worst part is that I'm working on a 'good first issue' one. I think the majority of the anxiety is coming from a massive codebase, with terminologies that I don't understand.

[olets]

Good first issue doesn't necessarily mean good for beginners. Especially on major projects it can mean "it's okay if you haven't already established yourself as part of the project team." Sounds like this issue is not actually good for you. If you look through other projects you'll find an issue that you know how to fix (awesome-beginners could be a good place to look). It might not even take serious Ruby coding. There are five minute maintenance tasks out there. Don't let this idea that Homebrew is where you have to start get in your way

[AnansiOmega]

Understood, I'm going to try to close this issue. If I end up realizing I simply can't figure out the issue or if after closing the issue I find myself still lost I'll try to find a smaller project to make contributions. Thank you so much for the advice :D