The Real Python Podcast

Great Starting Points for Contributing to Open Source


Listen Later

What’s it like to sit down for your first developer sprint at a conference? How do you find an appropriate issue to work on as a new open-source contributor? This week on the show, author and software engineer Stefanie Molin is here to discuss starting to contribute to open-source projects.

Stefanie is a data scientist and software engineer on Bloomberg’s Security Data Science team. She recently wrote an article titled “5 Ways to Get Started in Open Source.” We discuss finding ways to contribute that fit your interests and developer skills. We dig into the experience of participating in community sprints at a conference.

Stefanie is the author of Hands-On Data Analysis with Pandas. We also discuss the different processes between writing technical articles and authoring a book.

This week’s episode is brought to you by Intel.

Course Spotlight: Documenting Python Projects With Sphinx and Read the Docs

In this video series, you’ll create project documentation from scratch using Sphinx, the de facto standard for Python. You’ll also hook your code repository up to Read The Docs to automatically build and publish your code documentation.

Topics:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction
  • 00:02:55 – Being asked about how to get started
  • 00:07:13 – Differences in short vs long form writing
  • 00:09:03 – What was your introduction to contributing?
  • 00:17:52 – What are additional benefits of contributing?
  • 00:22:32 – Sponsor: Intel
  • 00:23:22 – Sprints as an entry point
  • 00:34:36 – Other requirements of a sprint
  • 00:36:05 – Differences in conferences
  • 00:41:52 – Other sprint experiences
  • 00:42:50 – Contributing examples to documentation
  • 00:45:59 – Video Course Spotlight
  • 00:47:11 – Looking for good first issues
  • 00:52:04 – Is this a bug?
  • 00:54:10 – Proposing a new feature
  • 00:56:36 – Data Morph and working on personal projects
  • 01:07:29 – Showing up in the Python community
  • 01:12:14 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
  • 01:14:59 – How can people follow the work you do online?
  • 01:15:28 – What do you want to learn next?
  • 01:18:23 – Thanks and goodbye
  • Show Links:

    • 5 Ways to Get Started in Open Source - by Stefanie Molin - Level Up Coding
    • seaborn: Statistical Data Visualization - Documentation
    • Docstring Validation using Pre-Commit Hook - numpydoc
    • Hands-On Data Analysis with Pandas: A Python data science handbook for data collection, wrangling, analysis, and visualization, 2nd Edition - Amazon.com
    • Episode #173: Getting Involved in Open Source & Generating QR Codes With Python – The Real Python Podcast
    • Episode #8: Docker + Python for Data Science and Machine Learning With Tania Allard – The Real Python Podcast
    • Mentored Sprints for Diverse Beginners - PyCon US 2023
    • Episode #177: Welcoming PyPI’s Safety & Security Engineer Mike Fiedler – The Real Python Podcast
    • Data Morph: Moving Beyond the Datasaurus Dozen - Level Up Coding
    • Data Morph: A Cautionary Tale of Summary Statistics – Slides
    • Anscombe’s quartet - Wikipedia
    • How to Set Up Pre-Commit Hooks - Stefanie Molin
    • Dog Speaks In Italian Accent To Sound Like His Owner - Bored Panda
    • Stefanie Molin (@StefanieMolin) / X
    • Stefanie Molin - Personal Website
    • Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

      • Building Python Project Documentation With MkDocs
      • Data Cleaning With pandas and NumPy
      • Documenting Python Projects With Sphinx and Read the Docs
      • Support the podcast & join our community of Pythonistas

        ...more
        View all episodesView all episodes
        Download on the App Store

        The Real Python PodcastBy Real Python

        • 4.7
        • 4.7
        • 4.7
        • 4.7
        • 4.7

        4.7

        136 ratings


        More shows like The Real Python Podcast

        View all
        Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers by se-radio@computer.org

        Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers

        272 Listeners

        The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source by Changelog Media

        The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

        283 Listeners

        Data Skeptic by Kyle Polich

        Data Skeptic

        481 Listeners

        Talk Python To Me by Michael Kennedy

        Talk Python To Me

        592 Listeners

        Software Engineering Daily by Software Engineering Daily

        Software Engineering Daily

        624 Listeners

        The TWIML AI Podcast (formerly This Week in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence) by Sam Charrington

        The TWIML AI Podcast (formerly This Week in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence)

        443 Listeners

        Super Data Science: ML & AI Podcast with Jon Krohn by Jon Krohn

        Super Data Science: ML & AI Podcast with Jon Krohn

        296 Listeners

        Python Bytes by Michael Kennedy and Brian Okken

        Python Bytes

        213 Listeners

        Data Engineering Podcast by Tobias Macey

        Data Engineering Podcast

        142 Listeners

        Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats by Wes Bos & Scott Tolinski - Full Stack JavaScript Web Developers

        Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

        982 Listeners

        CoRecursive: Coding Stories by Adam Gordon Bell - Software Developer

        CoRecursive: Coding Stories

        189 Listeners

        DataFramed by DataCamp

        DataFramed

        266 Listeners

        Practical AI by Practical AI LLC

        Practical AI

        189 Listeners

        The Stack Overflow Podcast by The Stack Overflow Podcast

        The Stack Overflow Podcast

        64 Listeners

        Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

        Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

        77 Listeners