Bitcoin Forum

Let's say that I wanted to contribute to the development of bitcoin.  What would be your suggestion in regards to the route to take, as in what parts to start with?

I've always found it confusing and difficult to contribute to an open source project. In fact, I've never successfully done it. I've always wanted to, but I guess I didn't want to bad enough. Every time I'd want to contribute, I'd hit a wall I couldn't scale of one kind or another. I suppose those failures are a result of my own shortcomings. I've since, finally, aimed a spotlight on my blind spot of computer technology. I had achieved a level of comfort in the areas of support, networking and routing protocols, sys admin... But the big blind spot had always been programming and the methodologies of software development. Trying to teach it to myself was an absolute overflow of information, so I did a bachelor program online and went with a structured program. I'm really glad I did, because I really like the structure of knowledge. I've since been developing in Android Studio in my spare time, still working in IT support. I want to achieve bigger things in my career, and contribute where I can. I first found bitcoin in 2013 when a friend of mine and I were playing around with the idea of digitally stored value. The correct google search syntax resulted in my first exposure to the project 'bitcoin'. I saw the potential to disrupt fiat currency markets for a more positive result for humanity.  I got a bad taste in my mouth a couple years ago when I was set up to mine on a KNC neptune, which obviously never happened. I took some time off. I'm here, again, curious if there's anything I can contribute, besides hashing power. Question to those who DO actually contribute on to the core project: Should I contribute?

Knowing how to write C++ (main codebase) and Python (test framework) is almost a requirement to contribute to Bitcoin Core. At the very least you need to be able to read C++. Even if you can't write C++, if you can read it, you can still contribute by writing documentation.

A good place to start is to first understand how Bitcoin work's conceptually. Then go through the open issues list: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues and find things that you think you would be able to do and that you think are interesting. Some of the things that we consider to be easier are labeled as "good first issue".

thanks for your thoughtful response. :)