[oAlbe]

Reading this kind of "experiences" always make me wonder if there's something wrong with me. As it seems, I am the only person in the world that can't find a mentor willing to invest a tiny bit of his/her time for teaching. And I didn't even ever asked for "peanuts".

It would be amazing to have the chance to learn from and improve my skill with an expert developer, and I'm sure a lot of people will agree with me.

Doing this at large scale would end up creating a "generation" of highly capable developers - and you will know that because you trained them yourself - who will eventually become the mentors and, in turn, teach to the next generation.

[j_s]

One way to read your comment is as a request for help, but there's no way to contact you directly from your profile here on Hacker News (in case you weren't aware, the email field is not public).

It's worth noting that some open source projects are noted for fostering a community that accomplishes what you describe... perhaps all that is lacking is the initiative to seek out such an opportunity!

[oAlbe]

> One way to read your comment is as a request for help

Well, actually, yes. I'm sorry, these are my first comments on HN.

> perhaps all that is lacking is the initiative to seek out such an opportunity!

Not really. I tried the open source way more than once both trying to collaborate on open source projects directly and through GSOC, but it failed. Turns out that GSOC seems to be exclusively for people already collaborating on the projects who partecipate in GSOC, so I got rejected (with harshness). The same happened (with even more harshness) on the copule of projects where I tried to collaborate directly (and I can guarantee I've been polite). For this reason I got discouraged, but not enough to give up. I already decided to try on a new project (NeoVim), but until now I didn't because of a lack of time.

[j_s]

Definitely don't give up!

I'd guess GSoC brings a lot of 'random internet strangers' to projects whose maintainers are highly motivated to reward known-quantity existing contributors (previously working for free) with the stipends.

Dealing with the personalities involved in open source can be the toughest part of the process; I recommend reviewing how previous contributions from others have been rejected before deciding to contribute yourself. Also, be sure to interact with the developers and community a bit (IRC, forums/issues, etc.) to get a feel for how well you fit in.

[idle_processor]

Can you please point me towards said open source projects?

[j_s]

I think the first step is to decide what you're interested in learning and reaching out to a project closely aligned with your goals. It is possible you will be rejected, but still worth making the initial effort to find one that would hold your interest. See the following blog post (and comments) explaining the ideal mindset needed when going into this: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/OpenSourceIsAThanklessJobWeDoI...

The specific group that I had in mind was Python; they have implemented a mentorship program at http://pythonmentors.com -- I'd recommend starting there and asking for pointers to other Python projects. With resources like http://learnpythonthehardway.org/ available you should be able to hit the ground running.

Apache maintains a similar process here: https://community.apache.org/mentoringprogramme.html and Debian does too for their package maintainers: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/new-...

Google and Facebook both run programs offering opportunity primarily to university students (Summer of Code and Open Academy). You can find a recent study of the Facebook approach here: http://www.sserg.org/the-role-of-mentoring-and-project-chara...

There is also some older info aggregating projects that were looking for help: http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/FOSS_Mentor_Projects

The Outreach Program for Women might not be applicable to you, but there is a lot of good info on their page too: https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen