I've been wanting to get into open source for a while now, even before I enrolled in my coding bootcamp. I want to contribute to certain software I...
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This article is very arguable.
At first, the proper term is "free software". Every free software is open source, but not every open source software is free!
Usually one can contribute to the free projects. The contributions to the non-free projects, even when they are open source is almost impossible for the the public.
At second, advertising github is not the best idea. The free software is for diversity and the free choice. There are millions of projects not hosted on github. Closing yourself in the github bubble, you will miss huge opportunities.
At third, advertising only "web-centric" languages is also not the best idea. In fact the most valuable (and interesting) free software is not written in these languages.
I would say, learn C and C++ in order to be able to work on serious projects.
I'd encourage you to have a look at this definition of free software by the GNU project - it's not true that every free software is open source.
GitHub is a perfectly fine way to start, as well as "web-centric" languages. Everyone's programming journey is going to be different, many will differ from yours. Many "serious" projects are built using web-centric languages, and there's no reason to gatekeep what you consider to be a serious project or a serious language.
Did you read this article actually?
Freedom number 2 states:
Look, I don't know who asked you to keep the gate, but it's cool, we don't need you to.
Thank you for this information. I know there are many details I've left out and probably should have added that there is still more to know about on the open source topic, as I was working on a deadline for this.
Finding it hard to get into any of the usual open source projects is no surprise really - despite the original promise of "all bugs are shallow given enough eyeballs" it turns out instead something more along the lines of "all eyeballs are as good as blind given enough lines of code grown in any way". Why not have a look at TMSR's V versioning system where each and every line of code is not only available but also directly traceable to all the "eyes" that reviewed it? At the very least, it's surely way easier currently to "get into" coding via TMSR than via GitHub, maybe come and talk to me directly on irc.
What's TMSR? Searching for "TMSR V" doesn't give me anything software-sounding.
Software never exists in a vacuum - so yes, TMSR won't be software-sounding precisely because the software part is just a tiny bit of it all. Anyway, V is a versioning system - possibly world's simplest and at the same time most powerful. If you want to dive straight in and play with it, you might find this helpful: ossasepia.com/2018/11/13/v-with-vt...
The reason why it's easier to get into coding via TMSR and V though is mainly because of a. people available and willing to help in real-time via irc b. docs standard + v-patches that are made precisely to help you understand the code line by line and all of it c. lots of active projects whose coordinators are perfectly willing to mentor effective newcomers - provided the newcomers submit to mentoring, true.