Hey everyone! This is my first blog on Hashnode. Super excitedd😁
I've wanted to contribute to Open Source for a long time now. HacktoberFest 2022 happens to be the first place I started contributing to Open Source projects.
Before starting with contributions, I used to think maybe I need to have deep and vast knowledge about different tech stacks to be able to contribute to Open Source. But things turned out to be different, one can contribute even with basic knowledge in any programming language or tech stack.
The First PR:
I remember making a PR and I saw the "NOT-ACCEPTED" label above my PR on the HacktoberFest progress page I was in a panic thinking maybe I did something wrong or maybe I made an invalid PR.
So, I immediately dropped a text in the HakctoberFest discord server, where I got clarification that the maintainer has not merged it yet and I have to wait till they merge it and that there was nothing from the HacktoberFest team.
This comforted me, discord server was the best thing out there throughout the event! Everyone was very supportive and considerate towards queries of any kind that were put forth in the channels.
Finally, my 4 PRs got accepted in HacktoberFest on 16th October 2022 and I received all 4 holopin badges.🎉
I made small contributions like pushing the solutions to some basic DSA problems in the repositories accepting them.
I realized that one is good to go even if one knows basic important concepts in a programming language like searching, sorting, etc.
Every contribution counts, Every contribution matters!
My seniors at the college and other community members were very helpful and welcoming, they guided me through the process very efficiently. After a few commits, I was very confident and excited about making more contributions.
I even encouraged my fellow mates to participate in theHacktoberFest and helped them through the process regarding how to find repositories suitable for them, how they can fork and clone it on their local machine, etc and I felt so elated when their PRs got merged quickly.
I have elucidated that having a decent amount of knowledge in a particular domain can help you improve the quality of PR that you make, and even boost the repository with good code that you contribute to it.
Working towards making good quality PRs next year, or maybe join as a maintainer to help other people get started with open source!😄