This time I've decided to participate in Hacktoberfest as a project maintainer.
The project is (AnadiCSV)[https://github.com/Cereal84/AnadiCSV] a simple tool to query data from a CSV file via SQL query.
AnadiCSV is written in Python and uses DuckDB and Textual, the project was submitted to the hacktoberfest in an embryonic state. The idea was to take advantage of the hacktoberfest for two reasons:
- learn to manage a project with 'external' contributors
- improve the code letting the people contribute.
Now some lessons that I've learned until now.
Write detailed issues
Even if the issue is crystal clear for you it does not mean that is the same for external contributors, especially if they are not experienced ones.
Try to have a dialogue on the issue
Details can be not enough, it is better to start a dialogue in order to be sure that everyone understands the work to do.
CONTRIBUTING file is important
I've always ignored this file in my repositories instead if you want to help people contribute is quite important, you can write the way you expect they work, the rules to follow, and sometimes which is the logic behind some section (i.e. if you want to add a cli option which are all the files involved if it is not so clear in the code).
Doing a poor code review is not a good idea
Sometimes you are in a hurry but you want to merge some PR as soon as possible; you read the PR quickly and it seems to be alright, skip some files because you forget about them or because you think that the changes will be so simple that surely they are correct.
Obviously, they will break the repository :).
GitHub Actions are good
Adding some checks like code formatter, linter, etc is a good idea to avoid doing those things during the code review and let you focus on important things.
Conclusion
Until now I've learned a lot and I'm happy to have started this project and suggest to anyone to try to do the same.
For anyone who is looking for issues on hacktoberfest please come and visit us :).
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