My first Hacktoberfest - Stepping into the open-source world

Contributing to Open source can be a little bit confusing due to tons of resources on the internet. Which is there to guide you towards your first open-source contribution. But unfortunately, after reading many blogs I don’t know how to get started with the very first open-source contribution. It was frustrating and a little disappointing, I started focusing on my other projects of mine instead. But, In the first week of October, I was scrolling LinkedIn and came across a post that was about Hacktober Fest. I was knowing about Hacktober which is a beginner-friendly complete month-long program to encourage the newbie to start with the open-source contribution and get the swags for their first step towards the open-source world.

So, what is a Hacktoberfest Exactly?

First of all, let me clarify that it doesn’t have to do anything with the hacking. Hacktoberfest is a celebration of contribution to open source, which is month-long, starting from 1st Oct and Ending on 31st Oct. It is initiated by Digital Ocean and collaboration with big open-source giants like GitHub, Docker, and many more. During this period, you are encouraged to contribute to the open source in your tech stack and make a pull request to your favourite repositories on GitHub. Each pull request is counted once gets merged in the repositories by the maintainers of the repositories. Once your 4-pull request got merged and accepted, you are eligible for the swags like Hacktoberfest T-shirts and stickers or planting a tree to reduce the environmental impact of global warming.

Finding a Suitable project for contribution?

There are several ways to find the repository that suits your tech stack, Initially, I was searching from GitHub explore section by searching the “#Hacktoberfest” Label but the repositories which I got were either not of my tech stack or much complex to understand for me. Later, I join the Discord community of Hacktoberfest and I found there a project-sharing channel. It was extremely helpful for me as the projects were simpler and beginner-friendly, which helped me make my first PR request. After a few days, I came to know about the Advance Search Feature of the GitHub Explore section, where I can search using the “#Hacktoberfest” Label and filter the search results by selecting the language and technologies which I am looking for. The filtered results can also be sorted based on Forks, recently updated, Stars etc.

Learning how to contribute?

While contributing to my first open-source project I came to know that I first need to understand GitHub and the git command line interface for that I refer to a few blogs on the internet. Later, I found a YouTube tutorial by Kunal Kushwaha on Git and GitHub (Well Explained Tutorial). My very first contribution was updating the readme file of a repository. I added the necessary information to setup the environment for the software to run locally. The feeling of PR getting merged is inexpressible I was extremely happy when I got the mail of my first PR got merged.

Why you should participate in Hacktoberfest?

Participating in Hacktoberfest is a great opportunity to step into the world of open source. This program gives a chance to learn contributing and git command line interface, a chance to work on a real-world project and understand the codebase of big open-source projects. During Hacktoberfest many communities host event where they spread knowledge about contributing to open source and encourages them to complete Hacktoberfest. It’s not just about the swags. Learning from this program by contributing to repositories increases the knowledge in your tech stack and makes you familiar with the open-source world.