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Contributing to open source vs own project

 
Greenhorn
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Hello everyone

I'm junior dev for couple of months, but I'm not writing much code (almost every task is for testing or eventually bug fixing. So I have following question - Is it a good idea to try to contribute on some open source project? If yes to witch one could you suggest? (I forked the guava and netflix projects @github, but I think that their issues are a bit advanced :/ ) Or should I try to build own little project (e.g. a blog with Spring, i'd love to hear more suggestions).
 
Saloon Keeper
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I generally tell people to work on something they're interested in, in order to better maintain a healthy level of engagement over the long run. Is there a library or open source project you like, and which you wish had more features or fewer bugs? That might be a good choice.

I'd say to stay away from big-name projects, as they're likely to have lots of people wanting to contribute that are way more experienced; keep those in mind for later.

Starting something on your own had the advantage that you get to work on all aspects, like design, UI, DB, architecture etc. Start small and grow it step by step. The goal should be for you to learn, not necessarily to make it public (which takes a lot more work, like engaging with users and possibly contributors, and growing the community - interesting in itself, but probably not what you're after at the moment).
 
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