You might
even have found something you would like to work on. When you are involved in a project,
you know what you are doing and can contribute. But there is a chasm between these places
where you are learning the code, learning how the project does things, learning the process,
and so on. While you are crossing the chasm, you are unproductive because you are in unfamiliar
territory.
So here are a few hints about how to cross the chasm. First, find somewhere that the
chasm isn??™t too wide??”start by fixing something small. The chance of any IT project failing is
inversely proportional to the size of the project. Start with a simple feature that makes something
better. Almost all IT projects have these in abundance.
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Second, don??™t think that because it??™s tricky, you must be stupid, or that the project must be
misguided. There are always reasons why things are tricky. The answer could be historic: when
the code was written, people didn??™t expect the code to be used in this way. Or maybe there is
some refactoring that needs doing that hasn??™t been completed. DWR??™s code is fairly good
because the code is young and we??™re fanatical about refactoring, but some projects have more
history to them.
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