Open source contribution vs side project

I think it's really hard to do both in the same time beside a full-time job.

So my questions are:

• From which can you learn more?
• Which one is better for your career?
• Which one is better for the community?

Comments

[Ben Halpern]

Why not both? Open-sourcing your side project is a great idea.

[Soma Györe]

Maybe my question has not enough details.

My side projects are on my github account so all of them are open source.

I always try to hold the scope tight because usually I learn something new with my side project but in this case I am the only developer of the application.

If I contribute in some open source project than I have to understand others code and a whole system (or a part of it) so I think it's a different experience.

Thanks for your advice :)

[Philly]

+1 for doing both.

Open-Sourcing your side project is a great idea, because:

1. community aspect: give-and-take is the way to go. There is always someone benefitting from what you built, not only from the tool itself but also by exploring the code you wrote. (For my part, I learn a lot by tearing other people's code apart. 😏 )

   • In return, you might get valuable input for your project (thinking of improvements, solutions for annoying bugs, stunning ideas for future features etc.). Plus, when you get contributions to your project, you might have a little bit more time for contributing to other projects yourself.

2. career-aspect: when it comes to web and software development it's never just about the code you write, but also about certain soft-skills. So when open-sourcing your side-project, potential employers do not only see how you do the very coding stuff (programming itself, documentation, ...) but also how you collaborate, and interact with others, how you manage, and coordinate projects, and even how you deal with (let's say) challenging contributors / behavior.

So, yeah, I'd def say it's always nice to open-source your projects. 😊

[Soma Györe]

Thanks for your explanation.

I think it's really hard to make a project that:

• interests other developers to contribute or give review
• has a tight scope that one can manage (especially with not too much experience like me)

But maybe I'm wrong and it's easier than I think (I never tried it before :) )