Developing open source contribution habit and learning the basics of NodeJS

Written by Arindam Dawn

Oct 2, 2019

Takes about 3 minutes to read ⏱

The power of Open Source is the power of the people. The people rule. – Philippe Kahn

I primarily work as a software developer where I work on web and mobile technologies. My area of expertise lies in something called frontend development which in simple terms means to develop things that users see visually and how they interact with them like booking a ticket by filling up a form and then clicking a button to submit it. This month, I have planned to learn some new related to this technical domain and try being a programmer and contributor.

Skill 1 - Contributing to Open Source projects

The term ‘Open Source’ refers to something anyone can contribute, modify and share because the design is free and publicly accessible.

‘Open Source Software’ refers to the source code of the software is open to everyone and anyone can contribute and improve the software.

Today, some of the most popular and loved softwares are open source like Android, Blender, Bitcoin, Firefox, Wordpress. Apart from these, there are numerous tools and programs that are being used by millions of programmers which are completely open source. It is a blessing and is a result of the combined effort of skilled developers across the world thereby breaking the chains of monopoly and heavily licensed patents by giant organizations which otherwise make the softwares very expensive for general use.

As a developer, I have learned mostly from free and open source resources and I am obliged to all the open source creators.

I decided to practice contributing to open source projects and improve my knowledge in the process of collaborating with other people.

October is a special month for the developer community. A popular event called Hacktober Fest is organized every year which encourages open source contribution from developers. In return contributors who meet the challenge rules, get a free limited edition t-shirt!

I personally felt this is a great opportunity to learn and try contributing my knowledge to the open source community. If you into software development, I would highly encourage you to try it out as well and earn a free t-shirt this month 😃

If you want to know how to contribute to an open source project, you can checkout this video

I hope to begin my journey as an open source contributor starting this month.

Skill 2 - Learning NodeJS

The second challenge is a quest to learn a new programming skill. As I mentioned earlier, my primary role is creating the visual part of websites, apps etc which is referred to as frontend. I decided to learn some basic skills to communicate with servers and databases. For example to create some script(lines of code) that can trigger emails or notifications to users based on some criteria. So my aim would to be able to be familiar with the fundamentals of this awesome technology which is nowadays used by top companies such as Netflix, LinkedIn, Uber, Nasa etc.

NodeJS is actually the engine that powers our favorite browser Google Chrome!

Resources to learn:

I am currently using the following resources:

and here’s a great video resource

I try not to write too much about software development in this blog as it is too boring for people not related to that domain. This month has been an exception as I preferred to take some easier learning challenges related to my comfortable working domain. It’s the month of festivals and I wishfully get super distracted 😋

I wish you all a very happy festive season. Enjoy loads!