# Contributing

DevFeed: [Contributing](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/contributing-21025.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://jakeyesbeck.com/2015/05/24/finding-projects/>)

Published: 2015-05-24T12:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Jake Yesbeck](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/jake-yesbeck.md>)

Topics: [Open Source](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/open-source.md>), [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [Pull Request](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/pull-request.md>), [test-coverage](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/test-coverage.md>), [GitHub](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/github.md>), [Learning](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/learning.md>)

Tags: [contribute](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/contribute.md>), [contribution](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/contribution.md>), [contributors](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/contributors.md>), [github](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/github.md>), [learning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/learning.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>), [pull-request](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pull-request.md>), [test-coverage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/test-coverage.md>)

## AI overview

A personal account of learning to contribute to open source projects. The author describes adding test coverage to the pluck to hash project, having a pull request accepted, overcoming intimidation about open source contributors, and using GitHub Explore to find projects that may welcome contributions.

## Source excerpt

Since starting this 365 day adventure, I have done a mixture of contributing to my own projects and to others. At the on-set, I made an assumption that it would be an even distribution of commits between my own projects and existing ones. However, this proved much harder than I originally thought. After a sizable amount of effort, I did find a few projects to contribute to. 28 days into this endeavor and seems like I might actually be able to accomplish my goal. One of the existing projects, pluck to hash, was a very young project when I found it. The project was released without any test coverage so I attempted to rectify that. Thankfully my pull request was accepted! It felt great to finally contribute to a project that wasn't my own. I also learned a few things by doing so. The first important learning from making a contribution was understanding that the caliber of contributors to open source software was not vastly superior to "normal" software engineers. I had previously thought of people who wrote open source libraries to be some sort of battle-tested, hardened, bug-resistant demi-gods sent here from Krypton in order to write code for us mortals. This was a very debilitating thought. For years it was a wall between me and open source software development. I didn't even entertain the idea of surpassing that wall and inevitably gave up on making meaningful contributions. Alright, that is probably a little dramatic but I think it makes my point for me. It was intimidating to contribute! Then, like a breath of fresh air, my pull request was accepted and these preconceptions vanished. It was awesome. It was super awesome (and objectively I didn't even do that much). A second learning from finding projects to contribute to was how to find them. It seems like an important thing to know, right? There are a few tools one can use to find projects that are ripe for the commit-in. Using the explore function on Github, you can find the top trending projects on a per langu