[mspaint]

1. Why junior level? Because I don't want to add memory leaks trying to add features to mongrel2, I'm not enough of a ruby wizard to hack on Rails or Sinatra yet, etc. When I start a project, I want to be doing stuff that will challenge me, but I can still get something done on. When I am hired, I don't think they're going to put me in charge, I think they're going to assign me small things to work on until I learn more and prove myself.

2. My full time job is looking for work. I have many part time jobs, like freelancing, helping my family, farm work, etc. I want to contribute so I can learn. Starcraft will not make me any happier a year from now, or even a month from now.

I use lots of open source. I spent most of a day once optimistically installing what I needed to build Firefox, only to read how long it takes even on quad-core meat grinders. I have a single core 2005 vintage laptop.

In short I don't care if I don't care about the project. The goal is help the job search, sharpen my skills, and maybe contribute something while I'm at it.

[Zev]

Because I don't want to add memory leaks trying to add features to mongrel2

You won't. Just send that patch in that fixes a bug/adds a feature. If its less than perfect, well, thats why code gets reviewed before committed. Other people look at the code and tell you whats wrong. And then you fix it! If you're not sure how to fix it, you ask, and someone will help.

I'm not enough of a ruby wizard to hack on Rails or Sinatra yet..

So what? You don't have to understand the entire system to be able to fix one small part of it. You don't need to understand minutiae of actionmailer to improve active record.

And how big do you think Sinatra is? I'm willing to bet its significantly smaller and less complicated than you seem to think it is :) *

I had more typed up, but, it can basically be summed up as:

  1. Find a project you like.
  2. Don't make any excuses and send in a patch.
  3. ???
  4. Profit! (aka: Goal reached)

* Sinatra is small; about 2k LOC, with ~400 LOC being html templates.

[bo_Olean]

Let me tell you one thing, I haven't committed any code to "popular" opensource projects yet. But, I've been closely watching one opensource project from its beginning. Dev team pushes new changes, there I am learning a bit more from it. That way it took me two years to build up confidence that now any code I submit to them would meet the code guidelines, standards and will improve existing system. I've been releasing small features on my own repo and contributing to community forum too. Now i think it's time to go ahead and surprise them with a new feature push.

You named >> mongrel2, Rails, Sinatra

I never understood this. Are there shortage of opensource projects in the internet ? I wonder why every one wants to commit to the already "established" and big projects. They have enough genius community backup to them. Why not give a shot to small projects just starting out in language of your choice ? I think, the end result will be more satisfactory.