How-to: Your first contribution

Michelle Casbon explains how, starting with little more than enthusiasm, she made her first contribution to the Apache Spark project this year. Michelle tells the story of this journey, sharing the key lessons she learned in a format that serves as a guide for anyone looking to get started, especially if they dont know where to begin.

For years, I had admired open source projects from afar. 2015 was the first time I made a meaningful contribution to an open source project. Prior to that, the open source community seemed like a big, scary world of superstar coders with brains bigger than mine. I eventually realized that committers are normal people too, after few serendipitous events (like actually meeting one). If you can relate and are interested in getting involved but don’t know where to start, then this is the session for you. I’ll break down the process into simple, easy-to-follow steps that give you an idea of what the experience is like, in the context of my own journey. You’ll hear about how I chose a project, what inspired me to get started, where I struggled, where I turned to for help, what I would do differently, and how it changed my career. My experience joining the open source community showed me that it is a much less intimidating place than I expected. Meeting several key contributors and committers along the way helped me understand that anyone can get involved, including you!