Do you avoid open source because PRs feel scary?
Do you avoid open source because PRs feel scary?
Volunteering to open source must be a thrilling experience, yet in the case of many developers it can be a frightening experience. You have a bug you know how to fix or an addition you would like to make but then you look at that Create Pull Request button and stare at it during weeks. It is not the code that frightens you – it is all the other things. And what if the maintainers believe that your solution is stupid? And what would happen to you, you did not obey some unwritten rule? What happens when they publicly criticize your code and other developers come across it? The technical section is comfortable enough, but the social aspect of the experience of your work being assessed in front of an audience of strangers is enough to make it seem like you are entering your code into a public flamation.
The most horrible thing is to imagine how it might go wrong in terms of social aspects. Perhaps you will make some stupid request in the pull request comments. Perhaps you will engage in a debate with a person who has 10x your number of GitHub stars regarding the style of code you use. Perhaps, you will shatter a community norm which you were not aware of and everyone will regard you to be unprofessional. Then you keep your fix to yourself, perhaps make a personal fork and tell yourself you will make a contribution when you are more experienced. In the meantime, you observe the pull requests of other people being merged and wondering how they had the nerve to submit their code to be reviewed. It is the desire to enter people into a conversation at a party and being too afraid that everyone will hush and look at him or her.
Such an approach is so easy to relate to; it seems to me that too many creators of the open-source system just overestimate how significant the social aspect of open-source donations is versus the technical.
The code actually holds people back, not so much, but because they are afraid of being judged in front of others or accidentally violating a community norm. The fact is that the majority of maintainers are quite thankful to receive gifts, even though they are small and have flaws, as it demonstrates that someone cares to make the project better. Open source is more about learning and cooperation than about code.
It can be broken down into less daunting steps: the first step is some minor fixes, reading the rules of contribution, and respectful discussion. All the seasoned contributors were novices who had to push the Create Pull Request button several times despite feeling nervous.