How to learn from open source projects

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How to learn from open source projects

We aggregate and tag open source projects. We have collections of more than one million projects. Check out the projects section.

Students ask this question frequently steps or methodology to learn from open source projects. There is no single answer or steps available. I listed the steps which i follow and i hope this will help for few.

Consider a java programmer wants to access database via ORM tools like Hibernate. In this case pick any open source projects which use database. The choice could be content management system or forum software. Among that pick Java projects and see which all use Hibernate to connect to database. Shortlist one or two and download their source. Search the source for hibernate related keywords. Most of the projects are object oriented and only one or two class will be responsible to access it to the database. Pick the class and learn the code. Reuse if possible.

If you want to learn anything related to generating charts, then pick projects related to reporting and analyze its source. If you want to learn any PHP based framework, then pick a CMS project which uses that.

Again this is should be a one time task. If you search, when there is a urgent requirement then you will waste more time in searching projects. This should be a like a habit, learn about one open source projects once a day or a week. Read their site and learn their design. What all the components they use to build their projects. Download the source and peep in to the lib directory to get the list of dependency. There are many small libraries which could make our life easier. Bookmark it and use whenever required.

Please feel to add your comments and write how would you learn.

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How hashmap works in Java. My style of learning.

This is the most frequently asked questions in the interview. Googling will throw many links related to this topic. How to learn the implementation of hash map? My style of learning using open source learning technique.

Advantages and Disadvantages of using Hibernate like ORM libraries

Traditionally Programmers used ODBC, JDBC, ADO etc to access database. Developers need to write SQL queries, process the result set and convert the data in the form of objects (Data model). I think most programmers would typically write a function to convert the object to query and result set to object. To overcome these difficulties, ORM provides a mechanism to directly use objects and interact with the database.

Crowdfunding for Open Source Projects

Open Source projects requires sponsors to fund their project. Few got good funding but few others are struggling to continue their project. A contributor, who does full time work in open source project requires funding to take care his needs. He has to be paid and he cannot do it for free. For those who don't get fund, check out this crowdfunding sites, these are exclusively for open source projects. Join these, get some fund and continue your dream.

Open source is the backbone for Startups

Many startups are entering in to the business due to open source. Open source acts as a back bone / pillar for their business. It reduces the cost of production, Generates revenue from consulting and support. This article describes about the startups which flourished because of open source. Sun acquired MySQL for $1Bn is the biggest achievement for open source startups.

Free Open Source Code Search Engines

There are couple of sites which indexes the open source code and provides support to search code. Recently Google announced that they removed code search support from Google code. This article provides pointer for code search engine sites.

How to make money from Open Source

As open source getting popular day by day, many have questions like How to make money from Open Source? Lot more products are getting introduced and don't know who is making money. Certainly open source means, give the product and source for free then how to make money? Yes sell the product for free but get paid for its services.

How to get sponsors for your open source projects

Open source projects are free to use but the developers should be economically happy so that they could give time and energy to the project. There are lot of projects which are good but not able to sustain in the long run. In this article we will discuss about how to get sponsors for open source projects.

Marketing stratigies required to sell open source product

Many new products are coming in the open source world. Few are forking existing project, adding new features to it and selling it as open source product. Few strategies required to follow to sell the product better.

Benefits in contributing to Open Source

What the benefit will i get, if i contribute to Open Source? This is the frequently asked question by many people. I just want to pen down the benefits which i know and i hope you will agree with it.

Google Open Source Pledge

Open Source is the way to innovate and users using it should have complete freedom. Google has came forward to declare couple of its patents on Map Reduce under Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge (OPN Pledge). There are multiple variants of open source license and using that means the product is completely free. Why OPN Pledge is required?

Where should i host my open source code?

I have a open source project but where should i host? This is the frequently asked question among developers. Below details will certainly help to choose the best code hosting site.

Pros and Cons of GPL licenese

GPL is widely used and known license in Open Source community. Richard Stallman father of GNU is the man behind GPL. GPL gives freedom and not free software.

React Patent Clause Licensing issue. Is it something to worry?

React libraries from Facebook is one of the most used UI libraries. It is competitive to AngularJS. There are many open source UI components or frameworks available but mostly people narrow down to two choices Angular / React. Recently Facebook has updated React license and added a patent clause which makes companies to worry and rethink whether to use React or not.

Microweber CMS - An open source CMS with Ecommerce support

To the user's satisfaction, there is a whole wide world of different CMS, all suitable for different needs. You can go for the giants like Wordpress or Joomla or pick one of the rising forces - Shopify, Squarespace or others. Microweber CMS fills a hole in the current technological ecosystem, aimed at delivering a light software that is perfect for all end-users lacking the technical knowledge needed for complicated website building.

GlobalSign - Free Certificate for Open Source Projects

GlobalSign is one of the Internet’s original trust service providers (technically known as Certificate Authorities). They have issued millions of trusted Digital Certificates to people, servers and mobile devices for Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) enabled solutions and applications. They are now giving certificates for free for open source projects.

8 Best Open Source Searchengines built on top of Lucene

Lucene is most powerful and widely used Search engine. Here is the list of 7 search engines which is built on top of Lucene. You could imagine how powerful they are.

How to contribute to open source

I could see many many students posting this question in many forums, I want to contribute to open source but How to contribute? There are many ways to do that. I have listed a few and I hope it might be useful.

Top 15 Open source alternative to Microsoft products

Microsoft is monopoly in the commercial software. Here are 15 best alternatives to most popular and widely used Microsoft products.

ONLYOFFICE Document Server, an online office app for Nextcloud and ownCloud

ONLYOFFICE Document Server is a free collaborative online office suite including viewers and editors for texts, spreadsheets and presentations, fully compatible with Office Open XML formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx). This article provides you the overview of ONLYOFFICE Document Server, its features, installation and integration with Nextcloud and ownCloud.

AbanteCart - Easy to use open source e-commerce platform, helps selling online

AbanteCart is a free, open source shopping cart that was built by developers with a passion for free and accessible software. Founded in 2010 (launched in 2011), the platform is coded in PHP and supports MySQL. AbanteCart’s easy to use admin and basic layout management tool make this open source solution both easy to use and customizable, depending on the skills of the user. AbanteCart is very user-friendly, it is entirely possible for a user with little to no coding experience to set up and use this cart. If the user would be limited to the themes and features available in base AbanteCart, there is a marketplace where third-party extensions or plugins come to the rescue.