DEV Community: Krish Gupta

Let's Crack Open "Open Source"

Krish Gupta — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 16:32:03 +0000

The current state of tech on Twitter:

"You can get a job with open source."
"Open Source experience should be included on every developer's resume."
"GitHub is your resume!"

Okay, I admit that the last one is just me:

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But hey, I also wrote a blog post about it and received (maybe good?; it was 0 feedback, so I'll consider it positive):

blog.krsh.eu.org / custom-github-profiles-will-they-replace-your-resume

So it's good to say that tech Twitter somewhat agrees with me? No. I disagree with half of the things tech Twitter says about open source. In this article, I try to map out open source with my experience and knowledge after almost a year and a half of contributing, maintaining, and advocating.

So what exactly is Open Source?

The book definition

Open source is code that is publicly available for anyone to study, improve, change, and redistribute to everyone.

Each of these may have a slightly different implementation due to the various open-source licenses available, but at their core, you should be able to do all of them.

The actual definition

Open source is a community of developers dedicated to the greater good. Many developers just open-source their projects to make development easier for everyone by solving common problems. Some other developers are against big corporations owning everything and favor creating open-source alternatives.

So it's just a VERY VERY VERY large community consisting of just 100 million people on GitHub

Popular Open Source Projects

So most people joke about Open Source software not being good :/

Especially about Linux,

What most people don't realize is that almost all of the code in your browser is open source. The entirety of the internet's backend is also open source, as is the software that Hashnode is using to present this article (NextJs). It does not take a good while to realize how much of your life is open source.

Why should you care?

Does Open Source bring jobs?

Short answer: It can.

Long answer: It most probably will not. Getting a job entirely through open-source contributions is a new thing most companies are still not into. But open source can help you get a job in other ways.

Resume

Open Source is a significant addition to your resume; it demonstrates collaboration and soft skills, as well as visible proof of your knowledge.

Skills

You can learn anything from industry professionals via the medium of open source. I could right now pull up a MEVN stack project, send in a PR, get a code review, and learn from people working in that tech stackthe people who built that project itself.

I mean, developers these days post these memes on Twitter:

Ok. You got it. No one can design such a bad meme other than me, so it's me, but how did you know this? :|

Open Source Noo Noos

Open Source Only For Jobs?

Never. Open source is not a way to get a job; it is just a multiplier to increase your chances. Don't let open source take over everything, including portfolios and projects.

Yeah, imagine explaining that situation to your ~~partner's~~ recruiter.

Beginners can't contribute to Open Source

I contributed without any knowledge of computer science as an 8th-grade student. What in the damn world can stop you, apart from yourself being lazy?

So I can, as a beginner, contribute to open source, but you can't? ("Yeh Sab Doglapan Hai!"; Translation: This is the true contradiction.)

You can not contribute to big projects

Where do big projects get their contributors from? If you think about it, every big project began as a small project. So what's the difference between small and big projects? Bigger projects move faster, but can you attribute that to their having more files? So it's balanced most of the time.

I've contributed React's documentation (which is in the queue right now); that proves that no matter how big a project might get, there is somewhere you can add value.

You have to be a dev to contribute

There are so many ways you can contribute! Why limit yourself to code contributions? You can add value in so many more ways (you can create your ways to add value)

Code
No Code

On a side note, anything that adds value is a contribution. (I'd also like to clarify that you do not need to contribute to only complex issues to be a great contributor for the same reason)

Let's do this!

So let me be clear: where I can help you, and where I can't:

Git & GitHub
How to approach projects
How to communicate as a contributor
First steps on making your first pr
Listing you projects that you should contribute to ( I will tell you how to find them here though)

Step 1: Git & GitHub

Git and GitHub have often been overlooked topics when it comes to open source. They are an integral part of contributing to open source, yet they are just left with a list of commands. I'll do my best to give you here a concise guide to git and GitHub, including all key terminologies and functionalities.

Git: Git is a version control system that allows teams to work on large projects with versioning and collaboration support
GitHub: GitHub is a hosting provider for git which has now branched out to have many other services, which give it the title of the place where the world writes code.

I'll also add in the image of an awesome cheatsheet about git commands:

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Step 2: How to approach projects?

Finding projects is very hard; in classic ol' Twitter thread fashion, I did cover this one pretty deeply, so I'm just going to embed it in a bunch of tweets. Yeah, yeah, I'm just lazy.

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So now that we've officially butchered Hashnode and Twitter into one app, (I mean if Elon Musk wanted 😜)

Let's move on to further topics:

Step 3: Making your first pr

This one should be pretty straightforward, it's just a simple checklist

I have identified where I can add value (Go back to the graph mentioning types of contributions)
I have found a project to contribute to (The step before this one)
I know basic Git & GitHub concepts (Step 1)
I have made a PR to EddieHubCommunity/hacktoberfest-practice to add my name to test out step 3
I have read the contributing guide and the code of conduct of the project (if they do not exist please do not consider contributing to that project as a first-timer)
Make a PR

I need your help people -- I've been writing this article since a great while now, but I think I still do not have enough perspective of different people just beginning in open source. If you've got a minute or two please share how can I improve this article and include more information. Thanks!

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to read this blog post all the way through. If you love me content, feel free to follow me on twitter for more such memey content

Accelerate Your Learnings With Web3Community and Build Your First Web 3.0 App

Krish Gupta — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 15:18:52 +0000

What's Web 3.0 all about?

For this question, We'd need to first deep dive into Web2.0, for a better understanding of the web

Web2.0

Web2 is simply the web we know and love right now. Web2 is like the interactive web. Web2 is also the web which allowed no-code/low-code apps into the internet. This form of the web is the most popular one. All of us have experienced. Even this site, dev.to is web2 application. If you've worked with JS Frameworks like React and Angular they are also the part of web2.

If you are curious and wanna learn more about web2, there's a Wikipedia Page for you.

The problem with Web2

Let's be honest, new technologies are only useful if they fix a flaw or pain with the older one. The problems in Web2 led to the creation of Web3.

Web2 lacked in Monetization and Security, few of the really important concepts in building applications.

In web2 the only two major methods of earning turn out to be, either selling data and infringing with privacy or advertisements

Most of the Web2 companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter, collect your data and provide you with personalised ads. Turning into more ad revenue. The web2 application experience a lot of Data Breaches. Web 3 solves most of these problems.

Web 3.0

Web 3 is simply web2 but with more security, self-governing, distributiveness and more. Web 3 applications more commonly run on blockchain technologies or decentralised networks. Users usually pay to use the services just like we pay cloud providers like GCP and AWS, but instead the money directly goes to the other users/participants. Web 3 also offers native payments, reducing as much data-collection as possible.

What's the Web3Community?

Web3Community is a community that focus on Web 3, Blockchain, and somewhat related to decentralized applications (Dapp). Here you will learn how to become a blockchain developer while having fun with other community members. Blockchain Developer is an interesting field, in demand and the latest trend in the tech industry. Here you will get to interact with some great folks and learn blockchain technology together.

Building you first Web 3 App

Web 3 consists of a lot of types of applications you could build like blockchain, dapp, etc.

We've created a whole learning curriculum for Web 3 Dev. Here you will learn how to become one of the Dapp Developers and collaborate with other people inside of web3community.

WebXDAO / blockchain-dev-path

This repository is for the Blockchain Developer path. Here you will learn how to become one of the Blockchain Developers and collaborate with other people inside of WebX DAO.

Learn with WebX DAO 🦄

Here you will learn how to become one of the Dapp Developers and collaborate with other people inside of WebXDAO. We gather content about Blockchain developers. You don't need to see all the resources, but choose what content is best for you.

For more information, you can directly ask in our Discord community.

Work on the documentation:

This website is built using Docusaurus 2, a modern static website generator.

Installation

$ yarn

Local Development

$ yarn start

This command starts a local development server and opens up a browser window. Most changes are reflected live without having to restart the server.

Build

$ yarn build

This command generates static content into the build directory and can be served using any static contents hosting service.

Deployment

Using SSH:

$ USE_SSH=true yarn deploy

Not using SSH:

$ GIT_USER=<Your GitHub username> yarn deploy

If you are using…

View on GitHub

Build Projects

If you already have decentralized applications and need development support to continue your goal. You can onboard your applications on http://stakes.social/

What is Stakes.social?

Stakes.social is a platform where you can register your OSS to Dev Protocol and stake registered OSS projects. Unlike other donation services, Dev Protocol is designed for the benefit of both supporters as well as developers by staking. Thanks to this system, developers find it easy to ask people for aid, which results in continuous support.

Connect with us?

Join us on Discord and Become a member of our GitHub Org