For a newbie like me who isn’t like a software eng wizard but is willing to put an hour or two every day, is a project like this a great way for me to learn and contribute? Or is it still so pre-alpha that you need deep domain knowledge to contribute and have an impact?
I think it's a great project to learn and contribute. The scope is very broad, so there are plenty of different areas to contribute to, including not-so-advanced functionality. For example, the initial find-in-page feature was introduced just a few week ago[1] and the core logic relatively simple.
Plus, the build process is well documented and works out of the box (at least on Ubuntu in my experience) and the community is nice and welcoming.
Even if not pre-alpha, building a browser needs deep domain knowledge. But on the other hand, after some time you will be rewarded with very, very useful knowledge of how the web actually works.
The start would be pretty rough but if your daily work lacks the challenge then I would encourage you to try contribute :)
I remember encountering this blog series of Chrome architecture articles[0] and telling myself I need to read through it (and, to date, still never have :)
Maybe it is of interest. (Just a heads up, it dates back to 2018.)
I’ll be that guy and point out that if you have to ask this question, it may not be the best personal fit. Unpaid open source contributions work the best and last the longest when they scratch your personal itch. Find a bug or a missing feature in a piece of open source software you use all the time; find an abandoned project you need and try to improve it; or build something you want but doesn’t yet exist. Forcing your way into open source through a large project that is not in any way special to you in order to learn, build your personal brand, etc. may not be the most sustainable source of motivation. But who knows, maybe that also works for some people.
> Unpaid open source contributions work the best and last the longest when they scratch your personal itch. Find a bug or a missing feature in a piece of open source software you use all the time
Most of the open source software I use are really rock solid, so I’m not sure what bug or missing feature I would be able to add. I also think as a newbie it’s perhaps useful to work where I can learn a lot in a short amount of time. Those dopamine hits can be pretty awesome :)
