Introducing a New Series "The Open Sourcerer of Forem"!
I have been wanting to get into contributing to Open Source for some time now. H...
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Nice, that’s awesome 😄 If you’re looking for tickets, I can report a few — some things got a bit messed up after the recent dark mode layout changes 😂
Yes please! I would love to see it! I am already fixing an issue on where on Dark Mode, you don't see the text in the article stats. Already working on it:
github.com/forem/forem/pull/23141
Thanks Sylwia!
This is awesome!! 😄 Yeah, I noticed that too. I’d totally be tempted to tinker with it myself, but nope… not right now 😅 I need to rest after my project marathon, I literally took a 2-hour nap this afternoon 😂
Oh boy. Hope that project looks nice! Did you share it already or planning to?
Oh hey! That's the issue I raised. Thank you for taking it up ✨
No problem! Saw you made a comment on the PR. I will respond to that sometime today! Thanks for pointing out the issue!
This is so cool Francis! Your growth is really inspiring, keep it up!
Thanks Aryan :D
I'm glad you came forward and solved it instantly. In open source, we need guys like you who can pull of miracles in one night. It was really awesome to see your PR getting merged.
Keep up the good work and keep on being open sourcerer.
Me regretting in the corner for not acting fast like you:
To be fair, it was a simple styling issue, so it was quick by default if you knew where to look. Sorry if I didn't get you a chance since I had a feeling that someone else, other than us, would tackle the issue even though it is already claimed. Will make sure to leave room for you if we decide to tag team on an issue in the future! Thanks Konark!
It's really amazing to see you are fast as flash. Keep it up these issues need to be assigned and completed asap. The gives you the edge over other people thinking whether they should take it or not.
Sure, thanks for the offer. I don't think I can ever compete with you. Maybe, need to be reverse flash to keep it up with you. Would love to work and learn from you, Sensei Francis.
Hey I am no Sensei lol. If anything, @ben is much faster because you know...he owns it so he knows everything!
Speaking of fast, he did fix an issue I pointed out the moment I commented on the win I had this week (weeks ago): dev.to/francistrdev/comment/364o4
The solution was much more deeper than I thought, but at least the knowledge I gained from it allowed me to fix a different issue :)
Amazing sensei. @ben is Master Oogway, and you are his dragon warrior.
I knew you were amazing but this much amazing, finding bugs and killing them asap. That's super fun. Keep it up and keep finding and fixing bugs in forem to make it even better.
Thanks! I appreciate it! Still waiting on that email. Let me know!
The z-index debugging process is a great example of why open source contribution is underrated for learning. You went from "something looks wrong" to inspecting the DOM, finding the class name, grepping the SCSS source, and tracing the styling chain — that's the exact diagnostic workflow you'd use debugging production CSS issues at a job. And Ben's refinement from 9999 to calc(var(--z-dropdown) - 1) is a nice lesson in design token thinking — hardcoded values solve the immediate bug but create future conflicts when another element also needs to be "on top."
Looking forward to the next chapter.
Thanks Henry! Do look forward for the next chapter of this series :D
The 'beyond the UI' framing is spot on. Most people only see the frontend of open-source platforms like Forem, but the real complexity lives in the background jobs, caching layers, and data pipelines. Contributing to open source at the infrastructure level is also where you learn the most transferable skills - understanding how production systems actually work under load is way more valuable than adding another component to a design system.
Well said!! Open-Source tends to be difficult because it's not your ordinary "Full-Stack" application where it is built in React or Angular. It is way more complicated than that and I believe that's why people tend to move away slowly because of it's difficulty.
If you were to contribute, you will learn "real complexity lives in the background jobs, caching layers, and data pipelines" as you mentioned along with understanding how systems work! I believe I am scratching the surface of how Forem work and hope that I continue to understand it more later on!
Thanks Archit :D
Fantastic write-up, Francis — clear, practical, and inspiring. I loved the step‑by‑step debugging: inspecting the DOM, locating the crayons-article-actions styling, and shipping a pragmatic fix that evolved from a quick z‑index patch to a tokenized solution. Your honesty about the first PR not merging and the value of slowing down makes this especially relatable for new contributors. Looking forward to the next Open Sourcerer post and any tips on tooling or tests you used.
Thanks John! I appreciate the support! Stay tuned for the next one and let me know if there is any feedback you will like to see :D
Love seeing this kind of open-source collaboration in action. One person spots an issue, another jumps in with a fix, and others join the thread—this is exactly how things should work. Also, dark mode bugs are always sneakier than they look
Thanks Daniel!
Congrats on getting your PR merged, great job! 🎉
Thanks Marina!
THANKS
The z-index debugging walkthrough is a perfect example of how open source contributions deepen your understanding far beyond just reading docs. Great first PR story!
Thanks :D
Intimidating, for real. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Thanks Doug! Appreciate it :D
Great walkthrough of contributing beyond just UI fixes! The debugging journey from z-index to grepping SCSS shows how much you learn from diving into an unfamiliar codebase.
"Open Sourcerer", haha I like that!
Thanks Leob!
Thanks
environment setup is always the hidden tax. projects that nail their docker-compose onboarding get 10x more first-time contributors.
it so hot
Interesting read
For sure! Thanks for reading David :D