Real FOSS appreciation (December 07, 2009)
So, it’s been roughly a year since my first commit to kdelibs. According to Ohloh it’s been in November 2008. And boy have I learned much in this year. I learned C++ just to be able to contribute to KDE, since I thought it would be awesome to be able to “fix your own itch”. I have to say: It was the best decision I ever made.
I really came to appreciate FOSS in a whole new light: Contributing to a big project like KDE gets you in contact with lots of nice people. And they will help you get things done. What’s better is that in the process you learn lots of things. And I mean lots. I can now use GDB, Valgrind, now my way around some parts of the KDE/Qt API, can investigate performance related questions… And since these are such huge topics, there’s always more to learn, much more!
I doubt someone could learn that much by reading books or writing his own little application without the help of a community. The wealth of possibilities inside KDE will increase your horizon constantly. And there is tons of very good code to study! Want to know why something is not working? Look at the source. Still not helping? Ask your fellow developers. I really have to say it’s an awesome feeling to be part of this big community.