Getting Started with Open Source

Hey there, this is my first blog this year in 2015.  I started my journey as an Open Source developer last month in December after meeting my mentor Chandan Kumar at Red Hat office during Python 101. He has been a great mentor and after working for over a month, I decided to share my learnings through this blog.

PS : If you’re a beginner and looking for guidance on how to get started with Open Source, then only proceed ahead.

Being  a developer, I believe it’s a good practice to use open source operating system. If you’re a windows user (I was too before getting started), before switching to Linux first lets go through some basic set of commands that will be frequently used. Believe me, the more you play with these commands, the more you learn about your system and then the real fun begins

Here’s a quick guide to start learning about basic commands for command line interface (CLI)  : http://cli.learncodethehardway.org/book/

Use ‘Power Shell’ in windows to get hold of all the basic commands. For further reference, use this cheat sheet :https://github.com/amaneight/cheat_codes

Now it’s an apt time to switch to Linux. Fedora 21 is an amazing flavor of Linux to get started with. Its installation process is very quick and easy.

 

One of the most simplest yet powerful programming language is Python. It’s easy to learn langugae and in my perception one should start journey into coding from Python only. Here’s a link to an amazing e-book by Kushal Das, using which many young developers started learning Python : http://pymbook.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

Being a developer, it’s necessary to keep a record of your own work. Initially we all start off with “HELLO WORLD” and later on proceed towards development of huge projects. Managing your codes and all development work can be done efficiently using github : a developer’s paradise. At github you can manage your work, share it globally with other developers, contribute in various open source projects and a lot more. To know more about how to get started with github, check out my blog : kickstart guide to git hub.

 

 

By now, you’re aware about following key topics:

1. CLI Commands
2. Linux Installation
3. Basic Python coding
4. Github

Congratulations.!! Now you’re no more a beginner in Open Source.

After reading this blog, start working on the above strategy step by step. Share this knowledge with your friends, learn and collaborate together.

For any questions or queries, ping me on facebook, twitter or gmail (amaneight@gmail.com).

Happy to help