In 2023, I can't think of a better way to showcase your skills than contributing to open source.
And that's not only for experienced programmers, but ANYONE having a career in tech.
In this post, I will cover contributions that non-coders can make to started with their open source journey (right away).
Let's dive in! 🚀
TL;DR
- Report Issues 🐞
- Suggest Improvements 💡
- Participate in Discussions 💬
- Improve Documentation 📝
- Spread the Word 🗣️
Report Issues 🐞
Every project has some areas of improvement.
• Broken links
• UI glitch
• Cryptic error messages
You can battle-test the product
And help maintainers identify bugs.
Make sure you provide context and steps to reproduce the issue.
Suggest Improvements 💡
If you can’t find any obvious bugs...
Think what could have improved your user experience?
How is app rendering on mobile?
Is page load speed ok?
Any instructions which are not clear?
Raise improvements as feature requests.
Participate in Discussions 💬
Collaboration is key in open source.
Be active in project related discussions.
Depending on the project it can be over:
• Discord/Slack
• Mailing Lists
• GitHub Issues
See where you can add value or share a perspective.
Improve Documentation 📝
Open source projects should be easy to use and understand.
Lot of it depends on the documentation.
You can audit project repo to know what’s missing.
And contribute in form of:
• User Guides
• Demo Videos
• FAQs
Spread the Word 🗣️
Lastly..every open source project needs evangelism.
Share your experience of using it in a:
Tweet
Blogpost
Or a YouTube video
That’s how projects get visibility and reach.
And you’ll learn some marketing 🙂
Wrapping Up 🎬
That's it!
These are some ideas on how can you make valuable no-code contributions to an open source project.
BTW - If you’re looking for an open source project...
Here’s mine: AskDevs
If you liked this post, follow me for more of these 🙂
Also, would love to hear any no-code contribution I missed in comments 👇
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