Spyrograph is looking for beginners to open source to contribute!
Tags: codenewbie, contributorswanted, opensource, python
Published: 2023-03-30 22:58:17

Heyo everyone!

My name's Chris and I'm the author and maintainer over at [spyrograph](https://github.com/chris-greening/spyrograph) - an open source Python library for generating beautiful geometric art in just a few lines of code

![A circle rolling around the inside of another circle traces a donut shaped pattern out of black lines on a white background](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/a12atk3r4vk6rrh02qvh.gif)

I'm looking for beginners to open source to join the Spyrograph community so they can get involved and learn the ropes of git, GitHub, open source, etc. in a supportive, zero-pressure environment!

{% github https://github.com/chris-greening/spyrograph %}

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## My experience as a beginner to open source

I always tell folks that I owe my career in software engineering to open source and I _completely_ stand by that

I graduated from university in 2020 with a degree in physics and just some tangential experience writing code for coursework, personal projects, etc. but I had nooo idea how to translate that into a career in software engineering

![a red, green, and blue set of spirals are drawn one after another from left to right starting with red then green then blue. They are vaguely donut shaped.](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/lgtfuvcem4ca8e8mizmy.gif)

Anyways so with the pandemic in full swing and [Hacktoberfest 2020](https://hacktoberfest.com/) rolling around I launched my first open source project [instascrape](https://github.com/chris-greening/instascrape), worked really hard at building and promoting it, and it eventually got fairly popular and I was able to network and land my first full-time job

But it did not come without its challenges!

## Learning something new can be a bit scary sometimes

Since it was my first time building or contributing to an open source project I had literally zero idea where to get started

And while the open source community is supportive and there are a lot of resources online it can be really intimidating trying to find something to contribute to - especially when you don't know the lingo or where to look! :sweat_smile:

![A black spiral composed of many lines is drawn on a white background spiraling around a circle in the middle of the shape](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9aqzkjcnak950hyi180w.gif)

On top of that I was definitely the kind of person that had to know 100% how to do something before I started interacting with others (and I was also the person that would get subsequently trapped in analysis paralysis) 

But I've since found out (the hard way) that the best way to learn something is to just jump right in and _start getting things done_

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## Using `spyrograph` as a learning opportunity

I have always been incredibly passionate about learning, teaching, and helping others

And because of that, I would love for beginners to come join the Spyrograph community as an opportunity to learn in a zero-pressure environment - literally no experience required!

![A circle is composed of negative space in the middle of the image with chaotic white lines with many angles engulfing the outside of the circle tracing out its shape](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/nfqkgakmhy7vype8k2hf.jpg)

Please always feel free to reach out to me for questions, advice, or to just talk about software engineering and I will always help to the best of my ability!

Can't wait to see you there!

{% github https://github.com/chris-greening/spyrograph %}