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I've been attempting to learn programming (in C#) for a few years now. The problem I've had is that I'd know what I want to do (or what I want the program to do), but no idea on how to actually implement it. So I often wonder what it is I'm lacking. Is the mindset of a programmer somehow different, and I've yet to condition myself to that type of thinking, or do I just need to know more about syntax and what they do?
Of course, it's compounded by the fact that I have no means of taking classes at the moment.
So is trial and error the way to being a better programmer, or are there essential pieces that I presently lack?
Also, my goal is to eventually get into the Gaming Industry, and I don't know if that affects anything at this point.
By far the best way to improve your skills is to practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more. Just like an athlete gets better and hones his skills and natural abilities, the more you code the better you will get. Your best resources are going to be books and the internet--blogs, articles, websites such as SO are incredible sources of information. Google is your friend, learn how to use it effectively.
Find a problem you want to solve, and then find two or three ways to solve it. Being able to approach a problem from different angles can be an invaluable skill.
I would also recommend finding an open source project you can participate in. There are plenty of 'em out there.
Yeah, it's pretty much trial and error.
Or more accurately, research, trial, error, cry, fix, error, research, success!
Anything I want to do (that is new) I typically find by doing various searches, or I accidentally learn by participating in forums like this, and then am lucky enough to remember when it becomes neccessary.
Just dedicate yourself to research and trying "various things", and then you'll become better at it. You just need to accept that it will be difficult at first, and that that is quite acceptable and appropriate.
You'll get the hang of it. As long as you're motivated, you'll achieve what you wish.
I think the most valuable thing at this point is seeing working code in action. Get your hands on lots of working sample apps with full source that interest you. Look at the source, figure out what does what, and start to modify it!
Then try to write your own apps using similar constructs, and you'll find it much easier.
I like silky's second sentence. I agree. Just hang in there.
Find a project (small project) that you want to do, and then learn how to do it. Any project...like build a calculator or something. If you have a goal in mind, it makes it a lot easier...and it will make it easier to people to help you when you post questions so they can have a frame of reference.
Lots of google searches...and stackoverflow searches ;)
One other way that can get you started is to look at standard examples (and I'm sure you can find lots of those for C#) try and run them, understand what they do, and then start modifying them and play around.
Get your questions from such tinkering answered by reseaching the net etc.
Increase complexity and you'd be on your way in a while.
Search around for an C# Open Source project that interests you. Most projects will take any help you can give. This will allow you to practice your skills in a controlled environment.
You do have means to take courses at the moment. There are entire courses, complete with free textbooks, available online. And that's just one quick example.
I recommend you work your way through a couple of coding and design books while learning the syntax of a language or 2. Code Complete is a great place to start. As far as what you should start programming, aim for simple things that will solve a problem you have. While picking up a language I have done things like write a program that will auto-organize my media library, kick off processes based on things I tweet from my cell phone, quickly add shortcuts to my favorite launcher app, or organize and archive all of my saved school work at the end of a semester. Also, look at a LOT of other people's code. It's can be hard to code better until you've looked at better code.
With this approach you'll build your abstract skills like design and upfront preparation, practical skills like file access and network communication, and general programmer toolbox items like regular expressions and reflection.
Another interesting thing to try is Code Kata. How do you become a great musician or learn to ski or speak a foreign language? Practice. Practice. Practice.
Google for Bruce Eckel's "Thinking in ..." books, they're free and very good
Take a look at functional programming languages - This will broaden your mind and therefore change (and probably enhance) the way you look at code and problems.
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Besides practice(practice and more practice) reading books and forums, analyzing others people code is a must in order to have a career in this field.
The problem is that I'm a student(feels like always on learning stage) but sometimes i can't solve the problems by my own. I was thinking that on public open source repositories might be the answer I'm looking for.
My question is how can i find the answer to some of my problems in open source projects/community? Do you have any tips to share for me?
ty
A few things for learning problem solving skills related to software developement (once you've found a project that you are interested in that is also written in a language you feel comfortable with) are:
Sign up to the mailing list
Lurk about on the project's IRC
channel (assuming they have one)
Read through bug repots (the open
ones to try solve them, and the
closed ones to see how others solved
them).
and of course discuss discuss discuss, if you think you have a basic grasp of the problem at hand but need clarification on some issues don't be afraid to ask your peers.
Hope this was of at least some help,
Welcome to the open source world and good luck!
Analyzing others people code is a must... I'm a student... public open source repositories might be the answer?
The problem with open source is that the quality varies too much.
(There's lots of my own code sitting in public open-source repositories that I wouldn't want anyone to try to see, let alone learn from.
And yet some of my code, the code I have lavished time and attention on, is very good—or so my peers tell me.)
So you don't want to pick an open-source project and learn from J. Random Hacker. You want to learn from the best hackers.
Here are some strategies:
If you're a student, you have acccess to teachers. One or two of them may have an idea about software. Ask them what is worth reading—what you will learn from.
Look at conferences and journals that publish about software: SIGPLAN, SIGSOFT, USENIX, Software—Practice & Experience, Journal of Functional Programming. Read about systems that look interesting to you. Write to the authors and ask them if they recommend you try to learn from their code. Listen carefully to what they say; most of the best hackers know they can do better. If you extract a grudging admission, with a bunch of caveats, that maybe there is something to learn there, you've found the right person.
If you're learning C, a lot of the old Bell Labs stuff is really worth looking at (and a lot isn't). I admire the work of Jon Bentley, Brian Kernighan, and Rob Pike, among many others. You can download and read the source of the original awk, or Pike's interpreter for Newsqueak.
Popularity does not correlate with suitability for learning. The GNU tools are very popular, but almost anyone who has seen both will tell you that you will learn more from the Bell Labs versions. And Linux is very popular, but people I trust who work in the field tell me that if you want to learn about operating systems, you should study BSD. I myself work in the field of compilers and can tell you that if you want to write a compiler in C, the model to emulate is the little-known lcc, not the wildly popular gcc.
Finally, I highly recommend the work of Richard Bird, Hans Boehm, Ralf Hinze, and Phong Vo (two Haskell programmers and two C/C++ programmers).
What I've found useful over the years, is to validate your code, go through coding conventions and best practices for various languages. Open Standards are the inevitable part of Open Source Software. In order to maintain a successful OSS project, it has to have some common ground in the community, so for instance:
if doing some (X)HTML and CSS, always do it by the W3C standards. Passing validation will in itself improve your skills greatly. Use tableless markup (see Benefits of tableless design);
if doing some PHP, go through PEAR coding standards which is the de facto standard for all OSS PHP projects;
if doing some Flash Platform coding in Flex/ActionScript, see Flex SDK coding conventions and best practices;
if doing some Java, see Code Conventions for the Java™ Programming Language.
Lastly, but not less importantly, research Object oriented programming and various architectures used for software development, e.g. the MVC pattern.
... analyzing others people code is a must in order to have a career in this field.
I wouldn't say that is correct. Certainly it is not a must. Reading other people's code doesn't usually explain why they chose to solve a problem a certain way, and what alternatives they considered and then dismissed. Besides, it is not uncommon to find open source code that is badly designed and/or badly implemented.
The problem is that ... but sometimes i can't solve the problems by my own.
Ah. Well the solution to that is to practice, practice, practice, and not be afraid to make mistakes. Be self-critical, but don't let this stop you from "having a go". The more you do your own problem solving, the easier it will become.
Ask, ask, ask, ask if you come across a particular problem or solution that you don't understand. Make a good-faith effort to solve the problem or to understand a solution, share your thought process, and ask. SO is an excellent place for that, which you undoubtedly have already discovered. Good luck!
As other said, ask to the mailing list of the project, anyway some of open source developers are not willing to help (unfortunately) for this sort of things.
In this situation I search answers by myself: pick up a terminal and use grep.
Guess naming of classes/functions that involves your problem you will find the way toward the module where the interesting bits are written.
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I'm a computer science student finishing up my second semester of programming classes. I've enjoyed them quite a bit, and learned a lot, but it seems other students are struggling with the concepts and assignments more than I am. When an assignment is due, the inevitable group email comes out the day or two before with people needing some help either with a specific part of the problem, or sometimes people just seem to have a hard time knowing where to start.
I'd really like to be able to help out, but I have a hard time thinking of the right way to give them help without giving them the answer. When I'm having trouble understanding a concept, a code snippet can go along way to helping me, but at the same time if it makes a lot of sense, it can be difficult to think of another way to go about it. Plus the Academic Integrity section of each assignment is always looming overhead warning against sharing code with others. I've tried using pseudo code to help give others an idea on program flow, leaving them to figure out how to implement certain aspects of it, but I didn't get too much feedback and don't know how much it actually helped them out, or if it just confused them further.
So I'm basically looking to see if anyone has experience with this, or good ways that I can help out other students to nudge them in the right direction or help them think about the problem in the right way.
Have them explain their code to you.
This accomplishes several things:
First, it demonstrates that they actually have code to show you. How can they not understand something if they haven't even opened up a text editor yet?
Next, it demonstrates that they understand the code at a basic level. They could have copied it from somewhere. If they don't know the first thing about the code they have, that's a flag. (If they did copy the code, but still took the time to understand the code, then that's still academically dishonest but it's a valuable skill to use after college.)
Finally, now we're at the place where they might actually get it, with your help (or possibly even without!) If they get to the place where the hole in their understanding is (as they're explaining their code to you) and it jumps out at them, then they've solved their own problem. If they don't recognize the hole, then this is where you can give them targeted hints.
I've worked as a TA and at a CS department help desk (and helped buddies). This is what I do...
Abstract out the issue, find a related problem, then work through the related problem with them. If they can't make the connection, you can't really help them.
Edit: and refuse to help with more than the bare basic syntax if they are looking for help the day of or day before. Things should have been dealt with long before deadline. Crutching people on the day-of is not a good practice for you.
Some thoughts:
Do pair programming
Have the student (the person you are helping) sit in the chair and code something. Could be a code snippet, could be a portion of a project, anything, as long as it represents something they have trouble on. As they go, point out (not rudely) places where they may have done something incorrectly, or something that could be improved upon.
Review work done
One of the things that helped me the most was to have a peer (as opposed to a teacher or student aide) review my code. Most of the time the peer could point out places where they might have done something differently.
Make them repeat you.
I often make people I'm helping learn repeat what I just said to see if they understand it or have any questions. You would be surprised how often people don't speak up when they don't understand something.
Offer help before the project is due.
Trying to get the project done the night before it is due is a surefire way to, at the very least, not learn the concepts as thoroughly as you might have otherwise.
Don't code it yourself
Your peers will learn nothing if you do it for them.
Find other resources
An aide, a friendly professor, another one of your peers can be invaluable resources. If you find that your style of teaching doesn't mesh well with one of your peers' style of learning, point them toward someone else who might be able to help them more.
Hope for the best
You can only go so far when teaching someone; they have to want to learn.
One thing that might be helpful to your fellow students is to point to similar code in the lecture notes (or if you don't get lecture notes handed out, in your own notes). That way you're only showing them what the professor said, but doing it in a helpful way.
If another student is open to it, asking them questions about everything they've tried and why would be helpful.
Finally, consider going to your professor and asking for his or her input on what you are allowed to do and how they might suggest you help others. After all, professors have years of experience in teaching students. Even more, will you have an opportunity as an undergraduate to be a TA in future years? I got to TA as an undergraduate, and that helped me to productively use my impulses to assist others without breaking any honor codes. If you have such undergraduate employment opportunities, letting professors see you now as the helpful type will help you acquire them.
I don't think you should be helping them. I think it's academically dishonest. Also, it does them no help to have you give them answers, or even to have you be around to answer questions, since once they get to the exam (or the real world), you won't be there for them. They need to not only learn how to program on their own (which presumably you're helping them do), but also get their questions answered on their own. That means posting on places like StackOverflow. You might want to recommend that they formulate a specific question (always a good exercise) and post it on here with the "homework" tag.
When I was taking CS classes in college, there were a number of students who just couldn't code or design at all (and I'm thinking of a senior level software engineering class in particular). They also had no idea how to go about solving problems, or where to look things up, where to get questions answered, or what questions to ask. They were totally helpless because they had spent most of their undergraduate time working on their homework/projects in groups and having the more talented group members hand-hold them. Don't perpetuate this. The last thing the industry needs is more incompetent programmers who graduate with good grades to put on their resume.
Whenever I tried to teach my girlfriend how to program I did almost nothing but ask questions. (she got to the .each statement before getting bored)
Ask them question how their code works and how they think they could accomplish the task. Give them small nudges in the right direction. And never EVER type something for them. If you have another computer and type code on it to show them and show them the results, that is fine but don't over do that.
Here's the advice I give my student teachers: avoid giving answers to students. Instead, ask them questions. And make sure to ask questions that they can ask themselves in the future. For the material I teach, here are some of the questions I want all students asking themselves:
What is your abstraction?
What is an example of how your abstraction is supposed to behave? Can you show me another example?
Are there any examples of where you abstraction is allowed to fail? How should it fail on that example?
Have you tested these examples?
What is the representation of your abstraction?
How does the representation relate to the abstraction? Can you show me a picture? Can you show me in math?
What functions are allowed to see the representation? What is the contract of each function? Does the representation satisfy an invariant that the function can assume? Does each function make sure the invariant is preserved?
What does valgrind say?
One of the most common problems in teaching is determining whether the student understood you. An easy and effective way to determine if you should continue or rephrase is to have the student demonstrate their understanding by doing something closely related but not identical.
Also, since programming is essentially word problems, it's important that the student break things down into steps. I'd be asking to see their highlevel step-through before I showed them anything. Too many people get hung up in syntax and never really nail down what they're trying to do before diving in.
A general experience in explaining stuff to others is to find out where they stand first. Try to refrain from giving them solutions to problems they don't even have yet (even if you are sure that they will come across them later). In other words, don't go two steps ahead of them. If they have problems understanding call-by-value, don't explain them recursion.
As far as helping fellow students in general, I generally use the "play stupid" approach. I pretend that I know nothing about their particular assignment, and I ask them to get me up to speed on what they are supposed to be doing. I also ask them to give me a quick run-down of what they learned in class about whatever concept the assignment is about. This usually takes about 5 minutes and about 95% of the time, the other student has answered their own question by the time they finish explaining it to me. If they haven't solved it by this point, I ask them to walk me through their solution to the assignment. In doing this, they usually catch where their solution deviates from what they just said they learned in class.
As far as programming-specific help goes, I sometimes ask the other student to send me their code and I run it through a simple shell script I wrote. That script blanks out everything in the code file that is not a comment, and I give the result to the other student to read. The resulting file usually reads like an outline of their code, and a lot of times they can see where their code went wrong simply by getting the code out of the way. If their approach is completely wrong, I tell them to write an outline of what the code is supposed to do (in high-level terms) using comments; after completing this, they fill in each section of the outline with code that implements that outline step (testing each "chunk" as they go). This helps a lot of people separate the code from the algorithm (many common problems I see stem from the lack of a systematic or disciplined approach to problem solving, and this exercise helps get them on the right path).
Another method is to answer questions using a different programming language. For example, I helped several of my fellow students on Matlab projects by explaining the concepts using C, Ruby, or even pseudo-code (that read more like plain English than code). I knew that they had far more experience with other languages, so I used what they knew best to illustrate the concepts and encouraged them to try solving the problem in their "native language" first. Once they were confident that they understood the concepts, they could work on figuring out how to implement them in the target language. Having to learn new concepts while you are still learning a language makes both more difficult. This approach also helps determine whether they are having trouble understanding how to solve the problem or how to code the solution.
PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH
show them some popular real world APPLICATIONS (as an example) which they use day to day...written in same programming language you are trying to teach.....
explain every thing with background
give every student, considerable importance
alwaysss use colour coded syntax
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I've been coding since my early teenager years. I started out with HTML, went on to PHP/MySQL (created my own forums, social networking sites, etc..) and then branched out into more traditional languages such as Java and C++ (also picked up a little VB .NET in high school). I'm most familiar now with C++ as that is the language of choice taught to us in Computer Science II (skipped Comp Sci I) at RPI. I now feel like I have a very good knowledge of how to program from this class (the homework assignments were brutal).
It is now summer and I am interning at a company that is providing me some level of new experiences with programming, but I want more. I want to feel the incredible satisfaction that I got out of my computer classes at RPI whenever I finished a long assignment (generating every possible wordsearch from a set of words to include and exclude comes to mind).
My question is, where do I go from here? I tried following a tutorials online, but they were all too simple. I then tried heading over to sourceforge and helping out with various projects. But, as soon as I downloaded the code I got lost in its complexity. I have never created actual software of a real life applicapable scale. And I don't know where to get started. How do you transition from programming knowledge to actuall creation of software?
I'm also open to learning new languages (javascript/jQuery, ASP .NET, C#, Python), or using new libraries and/or frameworks with c++ (we only used the STL in Comp Sci II) and other languages. Again my question is, where do I go from here? And I am welcome to all possible answers.
Thanks Much,
Michael
You could join a big open source project, you'll learn a lot and accomplish something cool.
EDIT after comment: If this is too complicated for you, try starting a "real" project. I say "real" because it should be something that you want to do, not a "create a blog" or "how to do a loop". For instance last year I created a fully functional project management system that I now use for some of my projects. If this is real, you will be more motivated and you will want to get this done.
Pick the technology you want for it. I'd recommend Ruby on Rails because it's awesome and full of interesting concepts that will improve the way you code overtime (DRY, RESTful, MVC...)... but you can pick whatever you want.
Try to create your project using what you know and basic tutorials. You will get stuck and have to learn some more in order to get the features you want going. To me that's the best way to improve the way you code and general programming knowledge.
Since you'll start the project from scratch, you'll see where to start and how this will evolve. I'll take the project management tool. We started with "A project has todos" and we ended up with all kind of other features such as a complex calendar, a full ajax interface, a embedded chat...
Once you see how you did this, try doing the same with a friend of yours to get a fealing of teamwork in development. Learn how to use SVN, basecamp... learn about software development processes (Agile!), peer programming..
There's a lot to experience! Then you could give open source another try.
Hope that helps
I'd recommend trying a pure functional language, such as Haskell. It's a completely different way of looking at programming, and I found it very satisfying.
I recommend the book Real World Haskell for learning it.
Edit: In response to comments, my interpretation of the question is where can he go from here as a programmer. Functional programming is a logical direction. For someone learning functional programming for the first time, Haskell is nice because it doesn't really allow for imperative programming practices. Furthermore, it has basically all features you will find in other functional languages, which means it will be easy to pick up other functional languages.
I would suggest looking at Project Euler. It's a great and fun way to learn a new language, and it does provide that level of satisfaction when you solve the problems. They offer a huge range of problems at all levels of difficulty.
I think the best way to improve your skills as a programmer is to do what programming was intended for: solve problems. I'm sure you've been playing around on your machine and at one time thought to yourself "I wish there was a program that did this..." or "I wonder if there are any programs that do X..." Instead of just googling to see if someone else wrote it, write it yourself. Start with something small, and gradually make it more complex. Add features. Allow yourself to fail, and when you do, ask yourself (or us at stackoverflow) how to overcome that obstacle. Once you have the basics of programming, everything else is just making big things out of littler things, and the little things are usually pretty easy.
When you are making something you know you will actually use, it's more fun and more gratifying when you finish.
Do you understand all of the following and how they work?
Linked lists (single and double)
Sequential vs. binary search
Binary trees
Stacks
Red-black trees
Algorithmic complexity and big O notation
Recursion
Hash tables and hashing algorithms
If you don't feel completely conversant in any of these, take a class in data structures and algorithms.
It seems like you've experienced many languages, but have not created a real-world application. Creating software in any of those languages will bring you to a new level.
PS: Creating software is much more than just knowing how to mess around with a language.
Check out Design Patterns.
I believe that's beyond mere simple coding.
You could offer your abilities to a non profit or a friend or someone who needs a website or program built.
Tell them you can do it for free and then just go for it. As you start to make it you'll start to see what you need to learn.
For example I bit ago I had the program Peel www.getpeel.com on my Mac. But sold my Mac for Wind as I am traveling.
Seeing that there was nothing for Windows (or nothing I could find) like Peel. I build my own in PHP and am up to a 4th rebuilding of it as I learn betters ways to do each new thing I am learning.
You've got to find a particular type of functionality that interests you. For me it's been basic socket programming and making my own protocols. I got that feeling when I was able to create a functional file uploading control that worked in conjunction with a file upload service on the server which I had created. The protocol handles authentication, chunking and hash comparison. Sometime soon I plan on incorporating file-resume functionality as well.
Well my advice will be to find a problem/project you are interested in and try to code it. Trying a real problem is something that drives you. Find something not to complex but not too simple. Something to try when starting a new language is to write some tools. You can for example program a python script that print metrics on a C++ project. You can write a tool that extract some statistics from a website you use, etc. When I learn programming game programming was quite fun (I was young :-) ). You can try to program some simple game using a 3D engine like Ogre3D for example. Participate in an opensource project is great too but as you stated perhaps a bit overwhelming for now ;-)
Find something you like and that has a REAL useful goal for you. You will thrive to solve the problem and learn a lot along the way !
I think the transition from the kind of finite tractable problems that are part of class projects (and some internships) to "real world" projects is quite tough. Sounds like language syntax, getting bugs out of code etc. is something you are comforatble with.
When we come to larger projects, probably with many release cycles, with developers working together, different kinds of problems emerge. I remember being shocked when I saw my first big project plan - what a small propertion of the time was actually writing code!
The thing I found helpful as a junior was "Sitting By Nelly", I was lucky enough to work for enlighted employers who put me with very experienced and helpful developers. Sometimes to work with, sometime to work alongside. I reckon that helped me get over the hurdles you describe.
So, I reckon you need to find employment of this kind. Be less concerned about specific technologies, salary etc. Look instead for the culture and level of responsibility you would have.
I think you should really start a "real world application" as suggested here. You will see that a real project requires a bit more than just knowing the language.
I suggest you find some simple problem you had issue with, and make a software that solves that issue.
For example, if you want some kind of software that checks RSS feeds every 5 minutes and makes a little pop-up as soon as a new one comes along. Or you want a program that will let you do simple presentations by just dragging a few pictures in.
Then whatever you choose, start by making the simple solution to the problem and extend from there (like do different settings, extra features etc.)
I've looked for the answer to this question for a while now. Most all of the suggestions are usually either help an open source project or build something that interests you. I'm starting to realize that those answers are vague because what's 'interesting' or 'valuable' experience and how to get started doing it is completely subjective. Also, there's only one way to get real experience, which is to work on real projects. It's difficult but find a project, personal, open source, or otherwise that will increase your knowledge in a technology or platform that you think will hold your interest. Then just dig in. It doesn't have to be of earth shattering importance, just valuable in relation to your own goals.
There is no magic bullet transition from academic puzzle solving programs to real world applications. The best way to learn is just to jump in head first. It will take you a very long time to learn what you need to if you only ever look at your own code. You need to be looking at code written by professionals and struggling to understand why it works the way it does until you do understand it.
It seems overwhelming at first, but you will quickly start to see patterns if the application is at all logical. Well written code will be separated in logical ways, so you should be able to pick it apart one layer at a time.
For example, you could try a bottom up approach where you try to understand how the database interactions are handled before looking at the code that uses the database layer. You keep going upward until you get to the GUI event handlers.
Large enterprise applications can be even harder to understand because there might be a lot more than one executable, or component. Try to stay focused and learn what the component is responsible for doing, and then pick it apart a piece at a time.
You will see that there are not just patterns at the function and class level, but at higher levels as well. This makes it simpler to understand what is going on when you understand those patterns.
Try to find an internship or co-op position. I was in a similar situation after my first few courses. I took a co-op position sophomore year and I learned so much more on the job than I did in class. Class is great for teaching you theory and the basics. I learned C# on my first project on my co-op and that got me my second co-op position at another employer (wanted to see how it was working at a small company).
This past spring, I accepted a position at my first co-op employer, reworking my first major project I had started on my co-op. I have a list of side projects I also want to complete, which will help round out my skills, as well as learn some other languages.
So my suggestion is try finding a job where you can have a great mentor. On my second co-op, I learned alot of the coding standards that I code against from my supervisor. He was a great teacher, and really had some great input, and explained why things should be done certain ways.
You will almost certainly go nowhere unless you find something that interests you. Figure out what is interesting, and then how to write software involving it.
The only way to begin is to begin! There is really no other way... The best answers you get would always tell you this. You have the knowledge, now put it to work!
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I know how to find open source projects. I know how to find them. What I don't know how to do is ask for a list of things to do. Every dev mailing list I have been on has been full of actual developers. I never see any newer programmers present. Most open source projects do not seem new programmer friendly at all.
How would someone who isn't a very experienced programmer ask for things to do, while not seeming annoying or troublesome.
What are your opinions on newer programmers helping out?
**
Does anyone who has a project going have room for a beginner-ish.
I know intermediate C/C++/
The short answer - Start by becoming an active user of the project. It will make it easier.
The long answer -
The problem isn't that open source projects don't want help - most would be happy to have all of the help they can get. The problem is that most people who decide to help stick around just long enough to take some time away from the development team, then "flake out" and never show up again.
I have been very active in a couple of open source projects in the past, and we ran into this all of the time. It was very easy to get people to want to help, but very hard to get them to actually put the effort required into the project in order to be useful. I personally spent many, many hours trying to help out new prospective developers, and nearly always ended up just watching them disappear.
The team will be much more responsive if you can prove that you're serious - and it usually takes more than just showing up in a chat room, forum, or on a mailing list.
First off, I'd start by finding the right project. It's easy to find open source projects, but more difficult to find the one that's the right fit for you.
This is the difficult, or the easy part, depending on your point of view. I'd recommend starting with a project that you are familiar with - and hopefully one you've used. If you find one you're interested in, try using the software in its current state before you even think about trying to join the development team. If you are a user of the software, it's more likely that you'll be interested in contributing over time.
Using the project will do two things -
One, it will familiarize you with how they are thinking about the project. This will often make it easier to understand the design of the code, but most importantly, help you understand the goals of the current team.
Second, it's also often easier to get the ear of a dev. if you have specific questions to ask. I personally am always very responsive to a specific, directed, intelligent question. This helps build a relationship with the current development team.
Once you've become familiar with the team and the project itself, and have some idea of what's there, try to fix one or two of the bugs. This is an easy way to show that you can be productive and useful, and will be received fairly well.
At that point, the team will probably be much more receptive to helping you find good, longer term goals and tasks on which to focus. I've had a couple of people who approached our projects more along these lines, and we've all been very happy to help them try to figure out how to fit in and mesh with the team as whole.
That's the goal - you don't want to just be a contributor in the long run, you'll want to be part of the team. That's when you start feeling ownership over the project, and when it really gets fun.
It depends on what projects you're getting into, but often a look at bug trackers will help (few devs will turn down a patch to a reported bug). If you run Linux, Gnome Love is a collection of "easy to fix" bugs that should be perfect for a beginner getting his/her feet wet. My advice would be to pick a smaller / simpler project, as the codebase is easier to get oriented to.
I haven't rode the train of a particular project, but I'd imagine you have to prove yourself to the dev team.
For instance, take a while to familiarize yourself with the code base. Look at bug reports and see if you can track down some bugs.
Once you wrap your head around things, you can submit bug fixes, or implementation of some features. Maybe write some documents to help new comers wrap their head around the code base. Basically, do anything that demonstrates that you know what you're doing.
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I'm currently studying computer science and looking for a good way to practice and hone my programming skills. Contributing to an open source project seems like a natural way to do this to me. I currently know Java, Python, and some C, but wanted to open this up to any established language.
In particular, I'm looking for a project that's fairly active and has a lot of work for less experienced coders.
A better known project such as Firefox might have the advantage of being more recognizable on a resume, but perhaps one could have a larger impact on a smaller project. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks in advance =) -Matt
A popular one to start on if you know C is GNOME - www.gnome.org
Another great thing to do is look for projects that need help by checking out the Help Wanted listings at Sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/people/
The Python website also has a Volunteer Opportunities page:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/VolunteerOpportunities
A good way to contribute also is to look at the websites and mailing lists of open source software you use on a regular basis and ask if they need help, or just browse through their bug trackers to see what you can help with. This would probably be more interesting for you as you'll probably be able to make more meaningful contributions quicker with an existing knowledge of the software.
Good luck!
First, it has to be something that you are interested in and will enjoy working on. Otherwise it may become a chore or you may not contribute as much as you might otherwise.
Second, I'd make sure the project is active and has people working on it who you can learn from (by seeing what they've done and any changes they might make to your code once you check it in and they review it).
Finally, if you have any idea what you might want to do when you look for employment as a developer, then try to find something related to that area of programming, a tool that is used by developers in that field for example, as that will help you learn about the problem domain, as well as how to program, which help improve your cv/resume.
Whichever sounds fun to do, that's a rule of thumb for side projects for me. I'd suggest you start your own by the way, this is always more exciting and can teach you "get the things done" skill.
I prefer contributing to an open-source project already actove. Depending on what you want you will find games, databases..anything you's think about surely needs your contribution.
My really first contribution was to a game that used opengl ...space stariods i think, it was more like an optimization, or bug fix, i dont really remember.
I've done a plugin for GAIM (now known as Pidgin).. but never get to publish it as it changed name and api structure. It should have display the currently played song in the status-bar..with lots of configure options. Never finished it though.
Another thing was a 'echo' plugin for XMMS, but i found some bugs, it crashed easily and random (during development phase) ..and it was no longer maintained in the moment i've started developing, so left it in the dark also:) This one i liked a lot.. lots of cool and weird sound effects.
They were all cool as they all used different structures, and already established rules for coding, and commenting. Lots of thing to learn like this instead of starting my own project which wouldn't change my programming skills in any way:)
jHeidi is a program I like to use, but which is a bit buggy and could do with some development. It's written in Java.
There's a clear roadmap: It's following the more advanced development of its sister project HeidiSQL.