Hacktoberfest Recap!
Tags: opensource, hacktoberfest, hacktoberfest23, hack23contributor
Published: 2023-11-01 03:52:00

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series: Hacktoberfest 2023
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I'm very happy to announce that four of my merged PRs have been approved by the hacktoberfest team and I have received my hall of fame entry and reward kit!

![hall of fame](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/8xrpklnkcr05kpq9r298.png)

![hacktoberfest profile](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/t1s95iid68muq9wyhekq.png)

![list of PRs](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0msf0fb76mwgdx7abgqi.png)

I have blogged about four out of the five PRs shown in the above list:

|               | **Issue Type**                 | **Issue** | **PR**                                                              | **Blog** |
|---------------|--------------------------------|-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------|----------|
| Week 1 PR     | documentation fix              | [Issue](https://github.com/mohiwalla/dtquick/issues/3)     | [Corrected the linked to sample files in README.md](https://github.com/mohiwalla/dtquick/pull/5)                   | [Blog](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-1-pr-423)     |
| Week 2 PR     | small bug fix                  | [Issue](https://github.com/mazipan/tanyaaja/issues/54)     | [FIX: prevent sending one word question](https://github.com/mazipan/tanyaaja/pull/67)                              | [Blog](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-2-pr-3b0f)     |
| Week 3 PR     | proposed UI enhancement        | [Issue](https://github.com/UjjwalSharma01/checklist/issues/24)     | [Allow clicking checklist section titles to expand/collapse sections](https://github.com/UjjwalSharma01/checklist/pull/48) | [Blog](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-3-pr-jjj)     |
| Week 4 PR     | intermediate-level enhancement | [Issue](https://github.com/mazipan/tanyaaja/issues/88)     | [FEAT: Displayed total registered users in homepage](https://github.com/mazipan/tanyaaja/pull/123)                  | [Blog](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-4-pr-15dm)     |
| Additional PR | small bug fix                  | [Issue](https://github.com/harshmangalam/qwik-x/issues/45)     | [Hide Follow button for Lists created by Current User](https://github.com/harshmangalam/qwik-x/pull/70)                | N/A      |

I did an extra additional PR since my Week 1 documentation PR was not merged, and I wanted to have 4 merged PRs to complete hacktoberfest. Unfortunately I did not have the time to write an extra blog post on that PR.

## My Progress in Open Source!

In [week 1](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-1-pr-423), I started out with little to no open source experience and never having done any open source contributions on any real world open source projects. My [first pull request](https://github.com/mohiwalla/dtquick/pull/5) was fixing a few broken links in a README file. In [week 2](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-2-pr-3b0f), I completed a small two line [fix](https://github.com/mazipan/tanyaaja/pull/67) to add validation to a form. In [week 3](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-3-pr-jjj), I tested out a project and raised an [issue](https://github.com/UjjwalSharma01/checklist/issues/24) myself, which I later [fixed](https://github.com/UjjwalSharma01/checklist/pull/48). In [week 4](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-4-pr-15dm), I wrote an API and implemented caching to localStorage.

At the beginning of this month, I was worried about whether I could find any issues that I have the knowledge to work on, but halfway through I started having a lot of fun coding. I even started looking for more challenging issues to work on.

I was able to work with many different technologies during hacktoberfest, and there are even more that are not listed here that I explored while looking for issues.

- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- HTML
- CSS
- [React](https://react.dev/) framework
- [Valibot](https://valibot.dev/) Library
- [Notion](https://www.notion.so) Database
- [Firebase Authentication](https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth)
- [husky](https://typicode.github.io/husky/)

## Learnings

I learned a lot about the different technologies, how to set them up, and how to use code to interact with them. For example in [week 2](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-2-pr-3b0f), I set up Notion database and Firebase for authentication. In [week 4](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-4-pr-15dm), I used Notion APIs to retrieve data from the database. I used a Valibot method in [week 2](https://dev.to/katiel/hacktoberfest-week-2-pr-3b0f) to add validation to a form. I learned about [husky](https://typicode.github.io/husky/) and how it was set up to automatically format my code with Prettier and ESLint.

I got to put the knowledge I learned in school to fix documentation, fix minor bugs in the UI ([#67](https://github.com/mazipan/tanyaaja/pull/67), [#70](https://github.com/harshmangalam/qwik-x/pull/70)), make [enhancements in HTML pages](https://github.com/UjjwalSharma01/checklist/pull/48), write [event listeners](https://github.com/UjjwalSharma01/checklist/pull/48/files#diff-ed3ee7e0beea2498ff3b8ca85973d122fc6fa3d585d62b5807ec034d0cf076b3), write [APIs](https://github.com/mazipan/tanyaaja/pull/123/commits/6e37aadbb357a5db1c6268885ffa3f1ea22f08d3#diff-f08eb5a1f2828d9994dafb86ed3696ccff7636c59b358453a36dede75a525fc5), and implement [caching in localStorage](https://github.com/mazipan/tanyaaja/pull/123/commits/6e37aadbb357a5db1c6268885ffa3f1ea22f08d3#diff-73d7a23e5015801b9bcc9db601d6ec9594d3eb34e5bb23154e0ae4b0c30f1a3b).

Most importantly, I learned the process of contributing to Open Source code! This includes reading contribution guidelines, checking out existing coding conventions. Also communicating with the project owner about how they want a fix implemented, receiving feedback, and revising my code accordingly. This is all good preparation and practice for working as a software developer. I highly encourage everyone to participate in the next hacktoberfest :)

## Check out these Open Source Projects

I want to give a shout out to the projects that I had the pleasure of contributing to!

- [tanyaaja](https://github.com/mazipan/tanyaaja)
- [checklist](https://github.com/UjjwalSharma01/checklist)
- [qwik-x](https://github.com/harshmangalam/qwik-x)