[salemh]

You can jump right in and start writing some code.

Will it be deployed? I don't imagine the pay-off to be immediate, or self-correcting (teaching/mentoring). I can't imagine how open source is somehow a teaching/development code base for beginners.

[etanazir]

Ever make a pull request and get some feedback on why not? Ever publish a package and respond to issues?

[knowitall]

I've read somewhere that most open source contributors started their own projects, rather than joining existing ones.

[NAFV_P]

Makes sense, reading someone else's code is generally harder than reading your own.