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My NDA prevents me of revealing a lot but here we go...

Hi,
during a 2 year hiatus after High School I decided to study CS. Coming from a third world country with no prospect of getting a nice job without breaking my back or getting spit on by overconfident CS geeks who now actually make a living wage there, I decided to study abroad.

I immediately realized what I have been missing... the culture, the people, the happenings,... I have been starved of LIFE

Anyways, I got the language pretty much down, uni is pretty hard but doable and I got the unthinkable... A JOB. I am currently a working student for a year at a multimillion dollar global conglomerate, doing what some may think of as scripting/data tinkering. I get payed more than both my parents combined, which is why they don't know anything... 😂 (yet, gotta ease em into it).

Now I have gotten my contract extended, which shows that I am doing a decent job there, the boss is firm but chill, coworkers are helpful and resourceful.

But what really grinds my gears is that I am mashing code together whilst googling my brain out, but I am not gaining any skill...

Now comes my grievance, the bane of my existence, the evil Morty to my Morty,... GitHub.

In this professional surrounding, where I got handed a $2,5k notebook and a overly huge paycheck, I never use Git (because we have a proprietary, internal, and very transparent alternative (transparent for the higher ups 😬 ))

I always wanted to contribute on GitHub, but I get very intimidated by the projects there and their scopes, people are waaay too knowledgeable in comparison to me and I will most certainly screw something up and embarrass myself. Since I am very self-conscious and awkward I would most probably just delete my profile there and lurk in the shadows again.

I need help, not only for my mental health, but also to expand my skillset and improve myself, since skill is the only thing I can still acquire.

Does anyone know where I should start as a overglorified python script-kiddy who still thinks 1337 is cool and mr Robot is a decent show?

Thanks,
@rn

Comments
  • 2
    Just starting with git you really only need to know a couple commands and you're largely good to go.

    The complexity of git really comes into play when the organization and system they created gets complex, but for a lot of folks ... you don't need to know it all / there's not that much to git (for a small group).

    Create your own account on github, put some code up there, make changes and try it out.
  • 2
    @N00bPancakes Thanks, I will try it.
  • 2
    Two suggestions for learning git:
    1. Don't panic when a merge conflict prevents you from pushing changes. It's normal and pretty logical. Save your panic for when you mess up a rebase and don't know where your changes are.
    2. Remember `git reflog`. You rarely need it, but when you do, you will be very glad it's there.
  • 4
    git reflog is indeed a saviour when you need it. For years though I thought it was "re-flog" not "ref-log" 🙄
  • 2
    Don't worry too much about what you put in your own github account, mine has some really shitty code that I wrote several years ago, plus some more up to date samples that I can refer back to when I've forgotten how to do something.
  • 0
    @nibor that soothes my anxiety a bit, but publishing does little to improve my skillset. Any tips on contributing/ gaining skills to contribute?
  • 2
    @Draugfein Many repositories have "good first issue" tags on issues for new contributors.
    Try to look at them and open a pull request.

    Try to read the contribution guidelines of the project you write a PR to though (if it exists), it will show you what they expect from you.
  • 1
    Well, the developer community can be a bit elitist some times, but generally as long as you're being nice and appreciative you can contribute and share code without getting frowned upon :)
  • 3
    Also note that if anything goes wrong you can go to:

    https://ohshitgit.com/
  • 0
    @N00bPancakes omg that is so witty 😅
  • 2
    @ScriptCoded It is even worse in third world/developing countries, people usually get paid good for being outsourcing kettle.

    The money starts corrupting them, people take on crunch for no reason, and they get overwhelmed by work.

    But nothing can beat a good ego-stroke amirite? 😂
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