Getting Started with GitHub

Hi Marcio,

That is a really good question. I started by "watching" and forking others projects. I started with the rails github linked here:

https://github.com/rails/rails

Additionally, adding in your own projects is another option. In this way you can create your own repositories and others can fork and watch them as well. You can even post them here at Treehouse!

Hope this helps :)

Cheers,

-hannah

It is intimidating, no doubt about. And as Hannah said, observing is great. Find projects were the devs who manage the project seem to be really into open source. One project that would be good is Bootstrap. The two "main" devs mdo and fat have been vocal that they welcome any and all changes.

Fork a repo you want to contribute to. This will give you an exact copy of your own to work with. Make your edits, and commit them. Now go back to the main repo you forked from, and create a pull request. This will show changes to what is currently there, compared to you changed in your forked version. If the dev likes your changes, they will merge your pull request, and thus you've just contributed to an open source project.

If you're concerned because of your skill level, you can start small by even adding or editing the documentation, fixing typos, etc. This will get you used to cycle.

Finally keep in mind, we all start somewhere. Most devs won't or shouldn't put you down because you're less experiences. Another reason why Bootstrap would be a great project to start on, mdo is very vocal towards other devs who are aggressive or put down less experienced devs. When you come across someone who is rude, ignore them and move on, they're not worth your time.