Burdette LamarThen
Since I've retired (apparently), I've mostly spent my time working on my own Ruby projects and gems, and on writing (here on DEV).
After a couple of years, though, I realized that these works don't have much "reach"; they don't affect or help many others. (An exception is my gem markdown_helper.)
Now
To "reach" farther, I've recently been contributing to open-source projects on GitHub; mostly:
- Ruby specs.
- Ruby documentation.
For specs, I've been filling in testing that the site itself declares as needed. This work is mostly invisible, but does help to guard Ruby against regressions.
For documentation, I've chosen classes with weak descriptions and few code examples. The changes I've made are of course highly visible in the Ruby documentation itself. Ruby version 2.7 includes the first of these contributions.
Moral of the Story
- Write, yes. (Some will read.)
- Code, yes. (Some will use.)
- But also contribute to open-source projects. (Many will benefit.)
So: Get Out There!
Links
To avoid clutter, I've eschewed links above. For anyone interested, here are a few.
Ruby Spec
Ruby Documentation
As I said, I just look around for a weak or incomplete discussion, and especially for missing or weak example code.
My changes for ENV add a fulsome introduction and (not yet complete) example code:
My changes for Exception restructure (or maybe just structure) the introductory material:
