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If you haven’t heard of the Open Source movement before, you might not realize it, but a majority of software that you use everyday is not only free to use, but it is open for changes. Let me show you how to make your first commit to open source.
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Hi, I'm Craig,
welcome to the Treehouse Show.
0:00
The Treehouse Show is a weekly
conversation with the Treehouse community.
0:02
[SOUND] In this episode, we're going
to explore our wonderful community and
0:05
answer a question about beginners and
open source.
0:12
Pranjal Agnihotri asks
a very thoughtful and
0:17
common question about open source and
beginners.
0:19
In his post,
contribution to open source, he asked,
0:23
if I have not created any major
product yet, can I contribute?
0:26
How do I find the right project?
0:30
How do I not break things?
0:31
Now if you haven't heard of
the open source movement before,
0:33
you might not realized it.
0:35
But the majority of software that you
used everyday is not only free to use but
0:37
it's open for changes.
0:41
Now so many of our day to day
interactions are with tools
0:42
that are built by a group of developers
who are volunteering their time.
0:45
For instance, this video player,
0:49
the one playing the video that you're
watching right now, it's open source.
0:51
It's created by 207
different contributors.
0:55
Not only is the code
available on GitHub for
0:58
you to look at, but you,
yes you, can make changes to it.
1:00
Now, I realize that might seem out of this
world if you're just getting started on
1:05
your coding journey.
1:09
But let's read a bit more on this post.
1:10
So to answer Pranjal's question, one of
our wonderful moderators, Jonathan Grieve,
1:12
encourages Pranjal to feel comfortable to
create what is known as a pull request.
1:16
Which basically is a way of saying hey,
I'd like to make this change to the code,
1:21
are you cool with that?
1:25
Most projects provide guidelines for
how to contribute effectively.
1:27
And as a fellow student of yours,
1:30
Ari Misha points out, open source isn't
just about contributing to code bases,
1:32
it's also about making
contribution to documentation.
1:37
And while some of the changes
might require deeper knowledge,
1:40
don't let that stop you
from being a part of it.
1:43
I love this, all it needs is a first step.
1:46
Ari then goes on to talk about
other factors to keep in mind.
1:50
Now, since GitHub is social, you can
take a look at the latest commit time.
1:53
All the pull requests, other issues and
how many stars it has.
1:57
He also suggest starring them and watching
the activity as a way of learning.
2:00
So how do you find a project?
2:05
Well, if you're just getting started,
2:07
there are a couple of great tools
out there that will help you.
2:08
First Timers Only is a great site
that helps you find projects that
2:11
are intended for new developers.
2:14
And Up For Grabs is another great resource
to help locate problems to tackle.
2:16
On the Treehouse blog,
you'll find some entries as well.
2:20
Check the notes attached to this video for
more.
2:23
So what if you have no experience at all?
2:26
Well guess what, the flow is pretty easy.
2:28
I'd love to get you hooked,
you don't even need a tool,
2:31
all you need is a GitHUb account.
2:34
So first, log in to your GitHub account.
2:36
Now take a moment and
think about your favorite typo, and
2:38
then what we'll do is we'll
type it in the search bar here.
2:42
So one of my old coworkers used to
always misspell language like this,
2:45
you can read langauge.
2:50
All right, so I'm gonna search for
that, I'm gonna click here and
2:53
I'm gonna click code.
2:56
And look here,
language is misspelled over 280,000 times,
2:57
so there's 280,000 ways for
you to help and that's just one typo.
3:02
So hey, let's do one that's near and
dear to my heart.
3:08
Now a common typo for
Treehouse is actually Threehouse.
3:11
Now, I'm not sure where that comes from,
maybe it's an accent thing.
3:16
Anyways, look, over a 160,
so I wanna help.
3:20
So I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna
click on this one here from Eliza.
3:24
Let's do this, it looks like she built
something from one of our react apps.
3:27
And here it is,
there's the ThreeHouse React Course App.
3:32
So let's help her.
3:36
So this is in her README.md, and the way
that you get to it is through here, so
3:36
here's the name of the file here.
3:40
This is what you put at
the beginning of your repository so
3:41
people can know what's going on.
3:44
So let's volunteer some of
our time to help Eliza out.
3:46
So I'll click and open up the file.
3:49
So I'm gonna click this pencil over here.
3:52
So it went ahead and actually
created a fork of this project for
3:54
us and we're able to edit
right here in the browser.
4:00
We don't even need to bring anything
down to our computers, pretty awesome.
4:03
And this is using mark down, so
this is a special kind of language, so
4:07
this making that when it was bold, right?
4:10
That's the heading there, so
this, let's just fix this.
4:12
We'll say, Treehouse, there we go.
4:15
If you wanna learn more about mark down,
we have a course for that.
4:19
So what we can do here is we
can propose the file change.
4:22
So you kinda give a brief
description of what we did.
4:24
So what did we do?
4:26
We fixed a typo, fixes a typo.
4:27
And an optional extended description,
4:30
this is a common misspelling of Treehouse.
4:35
Thanks for being a student.
4:41
We'll just make it cute there and,
there we go.
4:43
And we're gonna go ahead, we're gonna
click Propose file change, okay?
4:46
And what that does is it
created a new fork for me.
4:49
I didn't even need to know
how any of that stuff worked.
4:53
And what it says now here,
it says to create a pull request or PR.
4:55
So what this will do is when I make one
of these, it will send an email to Eliza.
5:00
And again, it pulled over what I said,
this is a common misspelling, thanks.
5:06
So I'm gonna go ahead and
click Create pull request, and
5:09
she'll get a notification.
5:13
And you can see all the pull
requests that are open and
5:14
you see my 1 is open right here.
5:16
Here I am saying, it's a comment thing,
and then I'll say,
5:19
This was featured on the Treehouse Show.
5:25
Awesome, so now when she accepts
my pull request, if she does,
5:30
my changes will be live.
5:35
How cool is that?
5:37
Not only can you do that,
you should totally do that.
5:38
What better way to learn to code?
5:42
You'll learn a ton by working
with a team of collaborators,
5:43
it's a great way to help
you build a portfolio.
5:46
We'd love to see your contributions,
so please, keep us posted.
5:49
[SOUND] Thanks for
watching the Treehouse Show.
5:52
To get in touch with the show,
reach out to me on Twitter or
5:58
hit us up in the Treehouse community.
6:00
See you next time.
6:02
Let me know when you
make that first commit.
6:03
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