Do NOT contribute to open source | Prime Reacts

Recorded live on twitch, GET IN

Become a backend engineer. Its my favorite site

This is also the best way to support me is to support yourself becoming a better backend engineer.

MY MAIN YT CHANNEL: Has well edited engineering videos

Discord

Hey I am sponsored by Turso, an edge database. I think they are pretty neet. Give them a try for free and if you want you can get a decent amount off (the free tier is the best (better than planetscale or any other))

[JohnDoe-sqnv]

I am not convinced that Theo is not just you in a wig.

[ennioVisco]

Thanks Prime, since I follow you I'm a full open source contributor: I successfully changed the copyright year in over 200 projects now!

[theondono]

Instead of doing Hacktober, you should do “Coffeetober”: An annual drive to donate your day’s coffee to an OSS project of your choice.

[prashantvgaikar]

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"

[bluesillybeard]

I only contribute to open source projects that I actually use, that actually have a problem than I want / need to solve. To me, OSS is not the goal, it is the means to an end. The end being good free software that I (and others) can use.

I was using a graphics library that would always crash on my computer, due to misuse of the Vulkan API. I submitted an issue, and they tried to fix it but failed. (nothing against them, hard to debug a crash that doesn't happen). So, I dug around Vulkan's documentation, went through their code, found the issue and fixed it myself.

[awesomedavid]

The one big open source contribution I've made is to a Minercraft mod. It adds a feature I want for my server, but it was implemented in a way that removed some vanilla behavior. So I checked out the code and saw an easy fix. Now I can use the mod on my own server with my friends.

[sutirk]

Damn, prime really hit us with that "it's not about doing what you love, it's about loving what you do" at the end

[chupasaurus]

I've recently read a rant from a scientist at CERN that bashed on hordes of PhD candidates that work half-ass on their project, do not share any knowledge on what they're working on and leave piles of garbage (be it code or data) behind because they disappear the moment they finish it.

[tom_marsden]

"As word got out, and it became a thing, it got shitty."

This is a great way to put it. Applicable to so many things. This also perfectly sums up how I feel about the internet in current year.

[kwisatzsawyer]

Problem as I see it is no one wants to invest in developing the next generation. Ever. Everyone wants a bunch of people with 5-10 years of experience and a handful of people with 20+ years of experience. Making it seemingly impossible to break into a field and squeezing out the old timers. Not a new problem.

[RootsterAnon]

"Type safety is a spectrum" killed me xD

[roycrippen]

I am employed and don't typically contribute to OSS. But I use nvim, btw, and a plugin I use didn't have a feature I wanted. I looked at the source code and felt like I knew enough to implement what I wanted. I added my feature and submitted a PR fully expecting to end up using my fork, but the author accepted and merged my changes. Felt good man.

[demarcorr]

6:52 "like the problem is is that, there's like a whole- there's a whole problem"

absolute wisdom lol

[NotInventedHereShow]

Contribute by sending sponsor money works very well too.

[Lttlemoi]

Beginner may also mean "easy for someone not familiar with the code base". For example, I have 9 years of C++ and 6 years of C experience on embedded/microcontroller projects with on and off Vulkan/graphics tinkering. I wouldn't consider myself a beginner programmer. However, I would still ask for beginner issues if I applied myself to contributing to Gimp or Blender or Inkscape. Not because I don't think I could do it, but because many issues just require deep knowledge of the respective codebase. That's why even those very complex projects have issues marked for beginners.

[khalilnaji]

Wow I love how prime is bringing guest speakers onto his channel to avoid showing his blue hair

[RubenALopes]

The main issue here is that the narrative of the industry started as: “ juniors don’t have deep knowledge “. Then juniors asked what do do and the answer usually involved contributing to real projects like open source and learning from mistakes and learn from people who have more experience. Now the narrative is that juniors shouldn’t contribute to open source because it will create a hurdle in open source. I guess it’s fair to say that no matter what junior developers do, they’ll never have the chance. It’s like I’m describing gatekeeping at this point. I think the “necessity “ to contribute to OSS comes from bootcamps or something similar that require the student to make a contribution in order to finish the course.

[erindeerhart]

Great Princess Bride reference. "Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is trying to sell you something."

[trappedcat]

I'd love for new devs to contribute to my repos. Nobody else does.

[vitchrubasik]

It's somewhat poetic that Hacktoberfest turned out to be a clustefuck, mirroring the event from which it drew its name inspiration.