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Open Source Software

I’ve recently been learning how to contribute to open source software. Not being a trained developer doesn’t matter that much–anyone can find ways to contribute once they learn the tools. After wasting many hours futzing around with failed rebases and pull requests, I’m starting to get the hang of it.

If I had to learn from scratch, here’s what I would do:

1. Skim the intro stuff

2. Get to know your target project

3. Hack!

4. Follow your PR through

Don’t forget to celebrate your first merge!

^Git SCM intro to rebasing and some tutorials: 1, 2, 3. Emergency safety: If you’re worried about messing things up, just store a zip file of your repo that you can restore anytime.