Open-source projects provide public source code for everyone to access, use or modification. As a developer, you may use some if they are applicable to be integrated into your projects. It encourages collaboration and participation. Some trending open-source projects include vscode by Microsoft, react-native by FaceBook, tensorflow by TensorFlow™. ## How I started my journey About a year ago, I joined Github, a web-based hosting service for version control and the leading software development platform in the world. During this year, I have contributed a number of projects as well as creating some for people to contribute. My first project I contributed was [OurLand Searching](https://ourland.hk/), a neighbour media web application where you can check out events related to public facilities, community activities or social issues within one to three kilometres based on the current location.  My role in day job during that time was a JavaScript developer. I taught myself ReactJS by watching video tutorials on YouTube or reading some how-to-build-something-using-ReactJS articles in preparation for ReactJS projects some day. This ultimate goal cannot be achieved by learning without practicing. As happened, one of my former colleagues shared a post on Facebook one day. It was from the group Code for Hong Kong and was about looking for ReactJS / Firebase developers to contribute. After understanding the background of this project, I found it meaningful and decided to give it a try even thought I got zero practical experience. First of all, I found the project repository and forked it. The next step was to try to understand the project structure and the code written by other developers. There were dozen of issues listing in Issue page and I left a comment in one of the issues mentioning I was interested in fixing it. My first commit was not purposeful and I was not frustrated as I knew there would be lots of improvement in my code. After several commits, I became a regular contributor. I spent a great deal of time working on this project and I started to revise my goal from preparing myself to making something that matters. Because of this project, I participated my first hackathon hosted by g0v.hk and Station for Open Cultures. A hackathon is a sprint-like event in where different people including developers, UI/UX designers and subject-matter-experts work on their interested projects. Other people are also welcome to join.  In this hackathon, I found another interesting project called [Hong Kong Address Parser](https://g0vhk-io.github.io/HKAddressParser/)(HKAP) by g0vhk.io. It aims to convert unformatted Hong Kong address into standardise tagged address parts with corresponding coordinates. All results are verified by string matching. I decided to contribute it after that day.  I spared some time working on this project and contributed by implementing some new features or fixing existing bugs. I was invited to the first soft launch and it was my first time meeting other two brilliant team members Brain and Nandi in person. And recently HKAP was listed on the showcase of applications on data.gov.hk.  ## Reasons of contributing to open-source projects ### Sharping your coding skills There are a lot of programming languages and you can find a multitude of projects using different programming languages no matter they are trending ones or lesser-known ones. You can dig into the projects, explore the beauty of the coding and learn the knowledge. You can choose the project volume as you wish. If you are the beginner, you may try some projects with less SLOC. If you want to take some challenges, there are still a large number of options. There are a number of developers who do not write clean code, which is code that is readable for other other people and maintainable to minimise the need for misunderstandings. In an open-source project, you will see a lot of clean code which reminds you to get rid of code smells before committing your work. A single function can be written in several ways with the same expected result. There is no best code, only the better one. Sometimes your code may be rewritten by someone else. You may either learn from mistakes or challenge it. ### Working with other people All people, even with non-technical background, are welcome to contribute to open-source projects. You can meet lots of bright people with different roles like programmers, designers, or users and share ideas with them and it does not matter where you are physically. Code is important but not at all. Listening to the ideas from different perspectives can definitely reshape the way you think and how you code. Sometimes it is not only building a software, but also building a connection with people. ### Giving Back to the Community Contributing is for the greater good. I will not say that doing so could create a global impact but something that matters. There is no way to measure the impact realistically. Giving is not about receiving. If someone can achieve some goals using what you made efficiently, it means that your work is valuable. And sometimes you can see something which the government does not care about, people would probably build it instead and make it public. ## What’s Next A few months ago, I started to work on a project called [OurLandGetcha](https://github.com/OurLandHK/OurlandGetcha), which is basically a native iOS/Android version of OurLand Searching written in Flutter with Firebase. In this project, I created some small projects as plugins used in OurLandGetcha such as [Rich Link Preview](https://github.com/wingkwong/rich_link_preview), [geodesy](https://github.com/wingkwong/geodesy) and [Dart Tel Input](https://github.com/wingkwong/dart_tel_input). I made them open-source as well and deployed to Pub, the package manager for the Dart programming language, for other people to use. ## Conclusion Working on open-source projects definitely gives you lots of benefits. It is not only for the project itself, but also for the people and the impact that you create. Have you worked on some open-source projects before? Leave the comment below sharing what you think.
Monday 30 December 2019
My journey to open-source projects
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