I kinda understand the point. However at what point one can call himself a "good prolific programmer" which has no time for "hand-holding", can judge if contribution is sincere attempt by some thirteen year old who wants to learn or just being done for CV.
One can argue that every kid with their "low quality patch" is net-negative as their teacher/project maintainer would be better spending time writing actual "good" code.
At what point one just starts sounding like elitist thinking that open source should just be left for exclusive prolific programmers?
> ... can judge if contribution is sincere attempt by some thirteen year old who wants to learn or just being done for CV.
To me it’s no different. Whether they’re thirteen or thirty, I’m not obligated to donate time to help them grow. In fact I’d say “student drivers” deserve less of my time — I’m not a free tutor unless I explicitly agreed to such.
That said, I deal with one-off contributors with respect and handhold out of kindness when necessary (assuming they’re not rude). But I don’t feel like explicitly setting the expectation that I will handhold, especially on trivial patches that’ll take me less time on my own.
I agree with you and think you're well-intentioned. One thing I'd point out is that if you're a project maintainer, who would you rather mentor:
- the inexperienced person who uses the software themselves, has an issue with it, and wants to fix it, or
- the inexperienced person who wants to boost their CV and picked a bug off a "starter task" list.
Assuming they are otherwise equal, I'd certainly prefer the first one, because chances are much higher that they'll stick around. Motivations matter.
Now if a patch just appears out of nowhere, obviously I don't apply a litmus test where I try to divine what the person's motivation is.
However, this logic has turned me off initiatives like GSoC. GSoC is great when there's a student who's already working on a project anyway, and it enables them to up their contributions during summer as an alternative to working a more boring job. However, my impression of GSoC with randoms who specifically scan GSoC for a project to work on has been disappointing.
One can argue that every kid with their "low quality patch" is net-negative as their teacher/project maintainer would be better spending time writing actual "good" code.
At what point one just starts sounding like elitist thinking that open source should just be left for exclusive prolific programmers?