The latest articles on DEV Community by pyerie (@pyerie). https://dev.to/pyerie https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F2313608%2Fd9b6c7ec-765f-49be-b523-feaaf3295c5b.jpeg https://dev.to/pyerie en pyerie Sun, 03 Nov 2024 16:12:30 +0000 https://dev.to/pyerie/a-reflection-on-my-hacktoberfest-experience-3157 https://dev.to/pyerie/a-reflection-on-my-hacktoberfest-experience-3157 <p><em>This is a submission for the <a href="https://dev.to/challenges/hacktoberfest">2024 Hacktoberfest Writing challenge</a>: Contributor Experience</em></p> <p>Hello there! This post is a reflection on my Hacktoberfest participation this year. It also turned out to be my first time participating in Hacktoberfest and was a great opportunity to learn more about open-source.</p> <h2> What's Hacktoberfest and how I found out about it? </h2> <p>I was scrolling through DEV community posts when I learned about Hacktoberfest. I was (and am) hungry for competitions and events, hence, this wasn't something I could pass. Hacktoberfest is a month-long event to celebrate open-source devs and to learn to be one of them. It's a great opportunity to learn and refine programming, problem-solving and social skills. </p> <h2> Signing up and choosing the right repo </h2> <p>I immediately signed up for the event but was having difficulty choosing the repositories to contribute. Most of the online repositories dealt with tech I was not proficient with. Looking through a few GitHub issues made me realize that I wouldn't be able to contribute with my current level of knowledge. This made me realize that programming tends to be a skill that requires constant change and learning. I wanted to contribute to a repo with lots of opportunities to code. I browsed through GitHub and found lots of repos that allow contributors to add their programs/codes which could help newbies and other programmers learn. I decided to contribute to AI-Octofusion and A-Z Python programs. These two awesome repos created by Techiral(shoutout to him!) would later go on to accept my very first PRs!</p> <h2> The contribution </h2> <p>I started contributing programs in the hope that they would be useful to someone, somewhere, sometime. My contributions included some of the programs that I put a lot of effort into. It's important to realize that developers use open source to learn new things and help them in their journey. I felt I had the opportunity to give back to society through this event. Throughout the month, I made 11 contributions, out of which 5 were merged. 2 of those contributions are yet to be accepted by the Hacktoberfest team(will be accepted 2 days from the time of writing). </p> <h2> Key takeaways </h2> <p>Looking back, I feel truly satisfied and accomplished. Collaborating with other developers was something I had never done before. Discovering the open-source community and being able to contribute to it was a real delight.</p> <p>In the (not-so-distant) future, I want to contribute to many more open-source projects. I wish to upskill myself and make a greater impact. </p> <p><a href="https://holopin.io/@pyerie" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fholopin.me%2Fpyerie" alt="An image of @pyerie's Holopin badges, which is a link to view their full Holopin profile" width="2428" height="764"></a></p> <center>My Holopin badge</center> <p><br><br> <br><br> <br><br> Tell me what you did during Hacktoberfest in the comments! </p> devchallenge hacktoberfest opensource