Thread by @TheZachMueller

I got asked a question at the end of my stream by @lukemshepherd I didn't quite get to answer:

​Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into contributing to the @fastdotai library who has experience with fastai but not software development?

Let's try to answer:

If you have absolutely zero, I recommend watching the first few lectures in the latest part 2 (yes of a few years ago!). Since it's building a library from scratch, Jeremy covers how he approaches software design, which can help you understand the design

From there, start small. Look at the simpler areas of the library, and try and add some documentation, etc. Then slowly build yourself towards not understanding how fastai works, but how the DESIGN process works. Apply yourself towards seeing how classes interact, etc

A little toying goes a long way.

After getting comfortable in some specific area, try writing some newer functions, or perhaps try to fix a bug that got noticed. It will be challenging, and you probably will struggle a bit. It's not easy and that's okay. Why?

With the discord, forums, and twitter combined, you can find someone (or many someones) to help you understand how to get from A -> B, and that's what's wonderful about this community!

To take that further, if the part 2 videos are still too high a level, try finding some educational tutorials and courses on Object Oriented Programming, and try and bring up your foundations (pun intended). You can stay in Python for those, so don't listen to nay-sayers*

*Other languages are important, and there is a strong belief in starting with C++ or Java as your first language, but I usually reserve that for if you're actually a CS major or don't know where to start (which you are Social Sciences learning ML, so that's okay!)

That's my take on it from my own perspective and belief, I hope some others might be able to chime in on this!

HTH :)

This comes with the stipulation of:

I did/am majoring in software design and development, so where fastai intersected with my college progress was late enough to where many fundamentals were already found, but learning fastai taught me much quicker advanced concepts 1/

I wouldn't get into a year or two later.

So, while you should take it with a grain of salt, I will extremely accredit fastai development work with advancing how I can program