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Open Source as Programming Exp. for College Students?
texatut asks: "With the computer industry in a slump, many college CS students nearing graduation are looking at pretty meek prospects. While 'formally' educated, few actually have concrete experience dealing with development of software. Many would like to have something concrete to put down on their resume or application to graduate school. However, starting their own project is a hard and time-consuming task. Obviously, the Open Source community is a perfect place for us to get our hands dirty. My question is, are there any resources that can help people with varying levels of experience connect with development teams in a way that would benefit both the project and the students?"
The problem that some employers have with new grads is not just the lack of experience. It is also the lack of experience on large projects. Writing and maintaining a 2k-3k utility, even at a job, is very easy as compared to dealing with a small portion of a 250,000 line program.
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SourceForge is a good place to start if you wanted to get involved in OSS development, but I would question whether such experience is truly valiable in the job market. While it looks good on a grad school application (maybe) it really doesn't demonstrate an ability to work in a close knit team, to meet deadlines, to solve problems, enguage in project management activities (in the more treditional sense).
It's true that working on an OSS project may give you experience in the actual work of software development in that you will be producing code, vary few of the software development skills msot companies look for are really developed or evaluated in the OSS world, unless you think a hiring manager at any company would actually be influenced by your code-fu rating as listed on SourceForge or Avogado. While in the strictest sense it may allow one to sharpen one's coding skills, I seriourly doubt whether it would significantly effect a hiring decision at any large company. On the other hand, if you want to start building up a consulting business it could never hurt to say you were a lead developer on OSS projects A, B, and C.
--CTH
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Wow. Slashdot is pretty full of people with lots of ideals and no skills or experience, but you completely take the cake.
Bold claim. Got any proof? Got any numbers for how many people are actually doing it? How many programmers actually make a living doing open-source programming full time today? How about a year from now, if the economy doesn't pick up? How many total programmers are there in the world? This "phenomenon" you rant about, this wave that's going to overwhelm us all, was barely even statistical noise even at its peak, and that peak has passed.
Been there? Done that? No, didn't think so. Open source or closed, your zealotry would be fatal in business. Those few people who are making money off open source have survived by learning not to piss off the guys with the money with that kind of extremism.
You might actually be right there. "Need" is a funny word. No, the world doesn't need proprietary software or copyright law. But they exist, and people - real people, not just big corps - benefit from them. You haven't provided any compelling argument that society would be better off without them. Heck, far better programmers and writers than you have tried to make such arguments, and they haven't succeeded either.
That, my friend, is called argumentum ad hominem and it's frowned upon as a fallacy. I'm not just nit-picking either; logic and debate are essential skills in the business world, regardless of whether your source is open or closed. There are myriad reasons why people participate in the creation of open source. Lambasting them all as parasites or cowards is as absurd as characterizing all open-source programmers as thieves. There's a grain of truth in each case, but no more.
Even if I were the most ardent advocate of open source - and I've probably done more for open source than you ever will - I'm too much of a pragmatist to back the losing side in any fight. You'll find that such pragmatism is a common trait among real engineers.
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First, let me qualify my post:
* I regularly evaluate candidates for employment in a disciplined software development environment.
* I fully support Open Source Software.
That being said, the open source code that I have reviewed has been of low quality in the areas that I look for in evaluating candidates, including:
* strong OO principles
* rigorous design
* excellent documentation
The few open source projects that I have tried to contribute to (freenet being one) actually scoffed at these points, claiming them to be the stuff of over-educated highbrows, stuffed-shirt engineer etc.
If that is the culture of open source software, then so be it. However, in the world of commercial software development, these are very real, very important requirements. The best hacker is useless if he creates an unmaintainable system.
The point is that, from my experience, OSS projects and commercial development are two very different environments (granted, many commercially-developed codebases are poorly engineered, hackfully constructed and are devoid of documentation). OSS projects will get you acclimated to integrated your work with that of other developers', but may also indoctrinate you in an unrealistic development environment.
In other words, it produces a lot of cowboys. Don't expect your bazaar approach to be successful in the cathedral.