There is a bit of a programmer trope "its easier to write code than to read it". This leads to reinventing wheels, duplicated effort, etc. When it comes to open source, I take the position that we are all in it together and try to come up with fixes for problems that I see in existing projects, even if I've never used the language before or the codebase is messy. I also think being able to work on code that came before you is a useful skill to have.