dfx Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 I'm a software developer, but I've found myself working in a company where I'm the only programmer, and my main project (Salesforce) isn't helping me fill in all the gaps in my knowledge. In fact it's probably teaching me a lot of bad habits. I can write procedural code just fine, but I still draw blanks when I try to design a program from scratch. All the low level programming knowledge in the world can't teach good program design. I think the best way for me to learn the skills I need would be to get involved with a team of social developers (as opposed to commercial developers) where I can contribute to and observe the process of designing a program and evolving it over time. My question is, where's a good place to find active social software development teams that are open to new developers and are willing to mentor an amateur like myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r3b00tz Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 You can browse Github or bitbucket and see if any projects need people, Masterbranch is a social programmer thing that's cool too, and of course any opensource project will let you apply. I prefer going to hackathons and meeting people there, you get to work with a small group of people with varied experience for 1-2 days, can learn a ton, and may even win something at the end of it. Meetup.com has a bunch of those listed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 (edited) Look up some mailing lists for the open source community, and find a project to contribute to. I think message boards, forums and mailing lists, as well as the above mentioned Git and such, are good places to start. Also, IRC channels devoted to programming, would probably also be good places to start visiting, even if just to observe, see what the topics are. Then find local hacker spaces or computer clubs in your area with like minded people, and go meet new people. Something as simple as a local 2600 meeting might spark some contacts for people in your area. I'm not a programmer, but those would be the things I would start doing to look for more like minded people. Good luck. Edited May 21, 2012 by digip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwall Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 The fireBwall team is always looking for more people. Check us out at https://firebwall.com We have some forums, a trello board, but we mostly talk in an IRC channel. I'm a software engineer finishing up college, with a lot of experience in design, and even more in development. You might be happy to hear that we are in the middle of redesigning the architecture of fireBwall, so you could see that process. #firebwall isn't where we talk, but where we answer questions for people. Take a look at the project and let me know if you want to join in. By the way, most of the code is C#, which is extremely easy to pick up if you don't already know it. -bwall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfx Posted May 21, 2012 Author Share Posted May 21, 2012 Thanks r3b00tz and digip. I've been browsing through Github for ages now, and there are lots of interesting projects going on. It's hard finding something that I could slot into and start working on. And firebwall looks interesting. I worked for four years doing tier-less support (we handled everything big and small) for a software house that produced a firewall/proxy suite, so it's a topic that I'm familiar with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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