I’m An Open Source Developer

One of the most exciting aspects to me of becoming a developer is being able to contribute to open source code. The fact that millions of developers are currently sharing their hard work with anyone who wants to use it is incredible.

I Became An Open Source Developer Without Realizing It

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It didn’t even occur to me until last week (when it was kindly pointed out by @sambillingham) that I’m already an open source developer. 🙂 I’m creating a website where people can create and share courses, and the code is on my GitHub account for anyone who would like to see and use it.

Part of the reason I’m building this site is because I want there to be an open source revolution in education similar to the one taking place in software. Learning materials are as shareable as code in a lot of cases so this seems like a feasible goal. There are some amazing things happening right now, like with MIT OpenCourseWare and all of the free ivy league courses available on Coursera, free apps like Duolingo, and free textbooks like Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar, but I want to see the open source education movement spread more widely at the individual level.

This is part of the reason why I love Udemy so much, because it is individuals creating most of the courses. There are some really great courses/teachers on there, and it’s totally reasonable that they would want to make some money from their hard work. In the same way that Utopian is helping to encourage open source code by rewarding the developers that put in all of that hard work, I think Steem can do something similar for education, and that’s what I’m hoping to contribute to. 🙂

Utopian.io

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Now that I have a better understanding of how Utopian.io works, I’m ready to start using it. It was a little intimidating at first because of all the rules that are laid out for each type of post, but I can see now how one of the main functions is just to post updates about the open source code one is working on.

I also get the feeling that writing updates on Utopian will make me a better developer. Here are the requirements for a post in the “Development” category:

If I want to submit to Utopian, I need to make sure I write high quality code that has a comprehensible commit history. After I submit a post, it needs to be approved by a moderator before it shows up on Utopian and has the chance to receive a @utopian-io upvote.

Future Open Source Plans

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I’ve been making a list of projects I’d like to work on when I’m done with the Thinkful web development program I'm enrolled in. Steem has a way of gamifying content creation that makes me want to keep participating. It’s fun to make things to put out into the world, but it’s even more fun when there’s a points system (in this case, actual money) and a built in community of users who are actively incentivized by the platform to keep contributing. It’s a cool thing to be a part of.

One of the things I’d like to create is a Steem goals site that tracks daily activity on an account (like posts and comments) and displays them on a dashboard that includes the user’s reputation score displayed as an experience bar. Also, I’m putting together some of what I’ve learned about using Steem.js into a simple site that will serve as a walkthrough for a beginner to set up a basic site with Steem integration.

I wasn’t sure if I’d continue working on my Steem power-up ranking tool, but a couple more people have used it so I’d like to improve the interface and error handling a bit to make it more user friendly. Lastly, for my final project with Thinkful, I’m considering making a crypto portfolio site that integrates with a user’s Steem account and automatically updates Steem and SBD balances.

Having these sites on the back burner is great motivation to keep learning new things every day. 👍

Thanks so much for reading! Let me know in the comments if you have any tips for an aspiring open source developer. 🙂

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