Ask HN: Can I be happy on small things done to the community?

[tryingToGeek]

Hi HN,

I have started contributing back to the community. I have fixed few bugs in groovy world and gave back to the community. Yes, my fixes has been accepted and its in the prod now.

But looking at the others bug fixes, I always see my fix was to an very small issue. Just a few line of code changes is what all required to solve my bugs.

Given this fact that I have been solving only the bug which are very easy, can I be happy on that?

Can I call me as open source contributor? Even for this small bug fixes?

[ColinWright]

Yes, absolutely. As time goes by you will find that you are making fixes that you think are straight-forward, but others call substantial. Continue on that path, constantly learn, and you will reach a point where others call you expert, even though you still think you're doing simple things.

Learn, grow, contribute, and remain humble.

[tryingToGeek]

Thanks for the words. It helps.

[vorg]

You didn't identify yourself, any of the bugs you fixed, or even had any identifying comment history here in Hacker News. You did, however, identify the open source community you worked in. Because someone in that particular community has a long history of anonymously spreading puff around the internet, this raises my suspicions.

By the way, you made a significant grammar mistake in "I have fixed few bugs" which should be, and has the opposite meaning to, "I have fixed a few bugs", an error which you got correct in "Just a few line of code changes". That person I mentioned above often poses as non-native English speakers, so your inconsistent grammar mistakes further raises my suspicions.

Of course if you're a genuine poster, I'm sure you'll use the username you've chosen to continue posting comments here on Hacker News.

[sarciszewski]

Hi tryingToGeek,

I do a lot of open source security research. Some of the most dangerous vulnerabilities I've found were addressed by a very small change to the code. Should I discount them because they aren't significant or substantial? Of course not. Why should your contributions be any different?

In my projects, I go out of my way to thank people regardless of how much they contribute.

See https://github.com/paragonie/random_compat for example.

Some of the peoples' names are there because they led the way towards great architectural changes that improved the reliability, readability, or performance of this library. Others, for pointing out (and maybe fixing) typos that made it confusing.

In all cases, I'm grateful that anyone took the time to help make something I wrote better, and the end result is that this project should be better for the community to use.

How does that relate to your situation? Simple: Your contributions are valuable. Whether or not anyone recognizes them as valuable reflects on their value, not yours.

Just something to keep in mind.

[stephengillie]

By having you perform a small fix, someone else didn't have to work on that fix, and that person got to fix something else.

[Mz]

Most stuff is small stuff. The small stuff matters. It adds up over time.

[jwdunne]

This is true. What is a project but a collection of small steps? One small, perhaps one hour, of contribution a day for a year adds up to hundreds of hours.

[jordsmi]

Small things add up over time.

Also, it is hard to just jump in and make huge changes. Keep making small changes, eventually you will fall into something bigger.