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Your first contribution (and beyond) by Dinah Shi Do you keep telling yourself you want to get into open source? Have you been thinking about contributing to Rails? Don’t know where to get started? Right here! Come learn about how to find an interesting issue to work on, set up your dev environment, and ask for help when you get stuck. We’ll also talk about what happens after the first patch and where to go from there.
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In the video "Your First Contribution (and Beyond)" presented by Dinah Shi at RailsConf 2018, the speaker shares her journey and guidance on how to contribute to the Ruby on Rails open-source project. The main topic revolves around easing newcomers into the world of open-source contributions, particularly within the Rails community. Key points discussed include: - **Personal Experience**: Dinah recounts her inspiring journey at RailsConf 2017, where she decided to contribute to Rails and successfully merged her first pull request two months later. - **Understanding Contributions**: The definition of contributions expands beyond coding, encompassing activities like blogging, answering questions on forums, and participating in community events, which are all valuable to the Rails ecosystem. - **Finding First Issues**: Dinah provides strategies for identifying initial issues to contribute to, suggesting starting with documentation patches as they have a lower barrier to entry and are essential for clearer project communication. - **The Role of Community**: The importance of building trust and rapport within the community is emphasized to facilitate collaboration and mentorship. Dinah encourages watching repositories to stay updated on new issues and to engage with existing ones. - **Importance of Documentation**: New contributors are reminded that they can identify areas for improvement in documentation, and their insights can significantly enhance clarity for others. - **The First Pull Request**: Guidance on how to submit a pull request is provided, stressing the importance of clear communication, tone, and patience in the review process. - **Mentorship**: The potential benefits and challenges of mentorship in open-source are discussed. While mentors can greatly help new contributors, finding a good match can be difficult due to the limited number of maintainers. - **After the First Contribution**: Dinah concludes with various pathways for contributors to take after their first successful pull request, advocating for continued engagement and growth within the community. Overall, the talk is motivational and provides actionable insights for anyone interested in beginning their journey with open-source contributions to Rails, encouraging them to leverage available resources and engage with the community effectively.
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