Lessons from Starting an Open Source Project

Starting my own open source project has taught me a lot. While the project isn't mature, it's shifting my perspective on coding and how I approach each task. Let's get more granular about why these changes are occurring:

Clear Communication

There are tons of tasks we do as developers. Terminal configurations, GitHub actions, CSS, and everything in between. When we're coding on our own, or with folks we've worked with before, we tend to make assumptions.

We're using X framework, we don't need to import Y. This CSS isn't impacting the placement of the nav, for example.

When creating issues for new people to work on, being clear and concise is as important as a flavorful broth for soup. If there are questions a prospective contributor has, then you're losing valuable time and progress your project could be making.

On the contrary, when a developer can review the docs, setup their local environment, and work through the issue, you're both digging into a delicious open source roasted cauliflower bisque.

Don't just Code & Push to Main

Coding up a personal project and collaborating in open source are dramatically different workflows. Often feeling the liberty of working on my own thing I'd work and push to main to make things easier.

I'm rethinking that now. This project has me pivoting into a much more sane workflow. Make an issue and an accompanying branch, apply and push changes, and, if no conflicts arise, and it's a needed change, merge into main.

This helps break down each task I take on, not make unwanted changes (hopefully!), and is a flow contributors can follow.

I wholeheartedly love open source and was enamored by the concept early in life. Starting a project isn't for everyone, but navigating forward as a technologist with these learnings in mind might help you on your coding journey.